12 Facts About William Pester

William Pester was described as epitomizing "the strong link between the 19th century German reformers and the flower children of the 1960s", and inspired the eden ahbez song "Nature Boy", recorded by Nat King Cole and others.

William Pester traveled west and, after a year in Hawaii, settled, in about 1916, in Tahquitz Canyon, near Palm Springs, California, part of the ancestral home of the Cahuilla people.

William Pester's presence was accepted by local people, and he built himself a palm hut beside a stream and palm grove.

William Pester spent much of his time exploring the local area, as well as reading and writing.

William Pester earned some of his living making walking sticks from palm blossom stalks, selling postcards with Lebensreform health tips, and charging people 10 cents to look through his telescope while he gave lectures on astronomy.

William Pester made his own sandals, had a wonderful collection of Indian pottery and artifacts, played slide guitar, lived on raw fruits and vegetables and managed to spend most of his time naked under the California sunshine.

William Pester became a well-known figure of curiosity, and was occasionally visited by celebrities such as writer Zane Grey and, around 1920, by film actor Rudolph Valentino.

William Pester was suspected by some of being a German spy and sending radio messages to Germany from the top of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Some sources date ahbez's arrival in California to 1941, when William Pester was already imprisoned, while others state that ahbez arrived several years earlier and, knowing of William Pester, would certainly have met him then.

William Pester lived in Los Angeles in 1948, and the following year was reported as saying that Palm Springs was becoming overdeveloped and that he intended to buy a boat and sail to a remote and thinly populated island.

William Pester later married, and died in Arizona in 1963, at the age of 78.

William Pester was buried at Yavapai County Cemetery in Prescott, Arizona.