Business Savvy Put Hertz in Driver’s Seat

Entrepreneur John D. Hertz, who founded the Yellow Cab Co. in 1913 and later went on to own the world’s largest car-rental company, left an indelible mark on the San Fernando Valley when in the 1950s he constructed an enormous bomb shelter on his expansive West Valley ranch.

The shelter, which still exists, cost $89,000 and was considered a masterpiece of engineering. Shaped like a submarine, it had bath facilities, an elevator, an electric kitchen and sleeping accommodations for 30 people.

Hertz’s Cold War paranoia was further exemplified by a complicated electrical system in his home that connected him directly to local law enforcement and federal agencies.

Hertz emigrated from Austria to Chicago in 1884 at age 5 and quit school when he was 12 years old for a job selling newspapers on street corners. Later, he worked as an office boy for the Chicago Daily News, the driver of a delivery wagon and even a boxer and promoter, staging weekly exhibitions in Chicago.

The co-owner of a Chicago automobile dealership, Hertz converted 10 of his cars into taxicabs and founded the Yellow Cab Co. Ten years later, in 1923, he purchased a rental-car company that grew under his leadership to be the largest in the world.

Hertz served during World Wars I and II as an advisor to the War Department and was awarded the Medal of Merit in 1947, the highest honor a civilian can receive for wartime duty.

Hertz purchased his ranch at the corner of Shoup Avenue and Oxnard Street in Woodland Hills from Willie Bioff, a Hollywood labor racketeer and convicted panderer who died in a 1955 car bombing.

Hertz used the pastures that Bioff put in to raise some of the nation’s finest racehorses. He raised three Kentucky Derby winners on the ranch, including 1943 Triple Crown winner Count Fleet.

Hertz died in 1961 at age 82.