Ruffled Feathers

from their peaceful slumbers by a warning. A few hours earlier, a local radio dj had been taken captive and a radio station had been hijacked by Nazi troops. Meanwhile, more troops were working their way across the city. Within thirty minutes, half of Winnipeg was under control of Hitler's forces. A Canadian army under the command of Colonel's D. S. McKay and E. A. Prittam mobilized out of Fort Osborne Barracks. By six thirty that morning, street lights flickered before going dark.

The bombs started dropping by seven a m. And the small group of soldiers already on the scene did their best to hold the line. They built a five mile perimeter around City Hall but within minutes it was clear that they were no match. The Nazi forces were too strong. They blew up the bridges. A firefight ensued. German tanks rolled down the streets while anti aircraft vehicles launched towards

the sky. The first civilian casualty was announced at eight o'clock, soon after, Winnipeg's mayor, the premier, and Lieutenant governor were all taken prisoner. An hour and a half after the battle had started, the Canadian flag at City Hall was replaced by the Nazi flag, its black swastika waving ominously overhead. German officials announced new rules for Winnipeg citizens and handed up amphlets outlining them. For example, all automobiles and public

transportation vehicles were now property of the occupying forces. All meats and produced from local farms had to be sold through the Office of the Commandant of Supplies in Winnipeg. Farmers were not allowed to keep any of their output for themselves. If they wanted to eat, they had to buy it like everyone else. All Canadian flags at emblems had to be destroyed as well. Churches could not hold services. Newspapers were replaced with pro Nazi publications and books. Were

burned out on the steps of the public Library. It happened so quickly and without warning, nobody was prepared, nobody except Henry E. Sellers, John Perrin, and George Waite. These three men were on the Committee for Victory War Bonds. Victory bonds were bought by Canadian civilians as loans to the government to increase the country's warcoffers. As part of a marketing campaign to increase victory bonds sales, George Waite

proposed a simulation of a Nazi invasion. His fellow committee members went along with it and created if Day, a citywide effort to boost their war bond sales by well scaring the pants off their fellow Canadians. They advertised their efforts several weeks in advance, just in case someone saw several dozen Nazis marching down the streets and really thought the city was under attack. The committee also created fake newspapers with articles written in German to add to the authenticity.

At the top of each paper, in big letters, they had printed the words this did not take place, but it could happen here, however, to really drill the idea home that any place was vulnerable to attack. Waits and his team hired thirty troops from various militia groups to

portray the brave Canadian Army soldiers. Meanwhile, with the help of a Hollywood customer, forty young men from the Board of Trade don Nazi uniforms and goose stepped their way down the streets of Winnipeg, intimidating news stand operators in any one else unwise enough to be out at six o'clock in the morning. As for the bridges, well, they weren't really blown up. Coal dust and dynamite sold the effect to the audience willing to believe that Nazis really

had invaded their city, and it worked. Despite the frequent reminders beforehand that it was happening, many Metitobins had either forgotten about IF Day or hadn't been paying attention to the signs. Several folks fled their homes or offices to avoid the approaching Nazis, while others looked on in horror at what had become of their city. The committee had set out to sell forty five million dollars worth of war bonds that day. Instead they sold over sixty five million.

IF Day had been a success and a shocking reminder to Canadian citizens that they weren't as safe as they thought they were, so the Greater Winnipeg Victory Loan Committee. However, World War two was just business as usual. The Martin family was on the run For as long as they could remember. They had the freedom to live where they liked, but in the late eighteen hundreds their options were closing down. But where some might have only seen difficulty, Jay Warren

Jacobs saw an opportunity. Warren was the son of a blacksmith. He had grown up traveling the Pennsylvania countryside. His father's work travel the countryside too, because he was also a buggy maker and wagon builder. The vehicles he made were sturdy, but they were beautiful too, and that's thanks in no small part to Warren. As he was growing up, it became clear he had an eye for design, and it became his role to hand paint the scroll work on the sides of his father's creations. He was a master

with the brush. A reputation as a boy artist followed him only as long as he was a boy. Soon he was in demand as a professional sign painter and calligrapher. Once he was hired to write the names in a

big Emily Bible. It wasn't long before he wrote his own name in the book, because the trip introduced him to the daughter of that family, and they were married in But as we know, Warren's family wasn't the only one he was watching out for, and in the years after he noticed the Martins, he moved from simple sign painting, which never brought in quite enough money for his growing family, to a new career construction. When he stepped in to help the Martins, he laid the first brick in his

architecture empire. In fact, the house he built was so attractive it brought their relatives to and he built a second. Within a few years, he had built homes for hundreds. But if you can imagine the sign painters flair coming to bear on his new endeavor, then I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that his home designs were not what you'd call restrained. In fact, they were ornate railings, pillars, arches,

broad porches, and ornate window treatments. Sometimes they stretched as high as four floors of doors and windows opening out to invite air and light into a four sided cube. His most intricate designs were sheer wedding cakes of wood and plaster, modeled on famous public buildings, a forty five room fortress with a bell tower made after Philadelphia's Independence Hall, a sixty six room mansion built on the design of the Pennsylvania State Capital. And work like that didn't go unnoticed.

He had orders come in from some of America's leading figures and fattest wallets. Warren Jacobs sold pre made houses to Henry Ford, William Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison. But these weren't just one off buildings. Because Warren had a mind for business. He had started in architecture company to sell each of these designs, and they each had a model number if you wanted to feel like a big wig in old Philadelphia while you were looking for a model number. Three.

Photographs from years later showed just how successful he was, with pre made houses stacked on top of each other in warehouses waiting to be shipped out to customers wherever they may be. War and his company continued manufacturing ornate and unusual houses until the Second World War, when materials

got scarce and the nation turned to other projects. Later generations of the Martin family, though, have continued to live in houses built according to Warren's design, although lately people have been noticing that not all is well in that domestic sphere. There were a few things that made Warren's houses unusual, things that made Warren distinct from the other architects and builders in his neck of Pennsylvania. For one thing,

the foundations of his houses were highly unusual. Warren designed a kind of pivoting poll to go underneath them and lift them up into the air. For another, he was building his houses precisely so that the residents inside could be watched, and Warren watched closely. And he collected too. He collected the things they brought home, and before long he had a wide ranging gallery of bones and furnishings

left behind in his houses. If that makes Jay Warren Jacobs sound like the worst kind of landlord, you can imagine the worry. It didn't go unnoticed. At one point, the FEDS heard about Warren's collection, and they discussed passing a law to take his collection away. Not because he was committing crimes though, no for science. They wanted Warren's collection in a public museum. Because, you see, Warren's homes were for the birds, that Martin family. They're the largest

species of swallow in North America. Then their glossy blue black feathers gave them the name by which they're known today, the Purple Martin. Today, borders around America are still working to give them homes because they're a species that has preferred man made homes for centuries. Today's Purple Martin landlords are still working overtime to keep that feathered family accommodated, but no one's ever done it with quite as much style as Jay Warren Jacobs. I hope you've enjoyed today's

guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,