This guy wants to build a neo-Nazi colony in North Dakota

Craig Cobb has big plans for Leith. The tiny town's far more level-headed residents aren't so keen.

Craig Cobb
(Image credit: AP Photo/Kevin Cederstrom)

Life in the tiny farming town of Leith, N.D., was pretty peaceful until the neo-Nazis showed up. Or one neo-Nazi at least: Craig Cobb, 61, a self-confessed white supremacist who quietly appeared in the town last year, ostensibly looking for work in the North Dakota oil fields. At first, residents in the community about 60 miles southwest of Bismarck thought little of their new neighbor. Little did they realize that he had big plans for their town.

As the New York Times reports, Cobb — who is wanted in Canada for promoting hatred via his white power blog — began stealthily buying up properties in Leith, and now owns at least a dozen plots, as well as a house that he bought on Craigslist (naturally). Armed with all that property, he now hopes to transform the community into a white enclave. He has already donated the community's former meat locker and creamery to the National Socialist movement, and is hoping that other supremacists will move to the area soon to help him realize his vision.

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Frances Weaver is a senior editor at The Week magazine. Originally from the U.K., she has written for the Daily Telegraph, The Spectator and Standpoint magazine.