Town file
Imlay, Nevada
Imlay, Nevada (Pershing County, Nevada) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 216, "The Pyramid Killer" (25 March 2021). In December 1980 Emory Dexter Strode, aged 71, and his wife Mary Mabel Strode, aged 72, were living in a small trailer on a gold and silver mining property in the Majuba Mountains, about thirty miles north of Imlay in Pershing County, Nevada.
- Town
- Imlay
- County
- Pershing County
- State
- Nevada
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 216
- Approximate location
- 40.658, -118.144
Episode 216 / 25 March 2021 / 160 min / full
The Pyramid Killer
"We're going to Imlay, Nevada... it's in Pershing county this town." about 0:06:23
The case: The Strode family murders (December 1980). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2021
- Population
- 227
- Median age
- 32.7
- Median household income
- $76,164
- Median home value
- $84,500
- Two-bedroom rent
- $700
- Cost of living
- 74
- Religious
- 24.3%
- Property crime
- ▼ about 25% under
- Violent crime
- ▲ about 50% over
History, in brief
- Imlay was a railroad town established in 1869 on the Central Pacific. about 0:17:42
- It was named either for the nearby mine or for the civil engineer who surveyed the town; no one knows which. about 0:09:43
- It is an unincorporated town with an elementary school, a general store, a post office and a trading post. about 0:09:25
- It sits at 4,200 feet in the Majuba Mountains, in gold mining country. about 0:07:51
- Thunder Mountain Monument is a series of outsider art sculptures and architectural forms assembled by Frank Van Zant from 1969, when he arrived in Imlay. about 0:10:26
- Van Zant was born on an Indian reservation in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, in 1921. about 0:11:06
- He served with the Seventh Armoured Division in the Second World War and was badly burned in a tank battle. about 0:10:53
- After an epiphany in the late 1960s he took the name Rolling Mountain Thunder. about 0:12:26
- He built shelters for a coming apocalypse and a spiritual haven for seekers of the hippie era. about 0:13:28
- The site covers five acres on the south side of a thousand-foot stretch of Interstate 80; there were originally seven buildings, including a three-storey hostel where hippies lived in the 1970s. about 0:14:12
- Three stone and concrete buildings remain, along with more than 200 concrete sculptures depicting Native Americans, their protective spirits, massacres and injustices against them. about 0:14:29
- The site was partially destroyed by arson in 1983, the year he was honoured as Nevada artist of the year. about 0:15:53
- His wife left him and took their children, and he was depressed that the apocalypse had not come. about 0:16:36
- In 1989 he shot himself. about 0:16:52
- Thunder Mountain became a Nevada State Historic Site in 1992. about 0:17:17
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Winnemucca, Nevada30 miles
- Denio, Nevada95 miles
- Lemmon Valley, Nevada112 miles
- Sun Valley, Nevada113 miles
- Dayton, Nevada121 miles
- Elko, Nevada125 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.