Apacheland Movie Ranch (Apacheland Studio) Located in the town of
Apache Junction, Arizona, the Apacheland Movie Ranch and Apacheland Studio was developed from 1959 to 1960 and opened in 1960. Starting in late 1957, movie studios had been contacting Superstition Mountain-area ranchers, including the Quarter Circle U, the Quarter Circle W, and the Barkley Cattle Ranch, for options to use their properties as town sets. One notable production during this time was
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) with
Kirk Douglas and
Burt Lancaster. Though historically inaccurate, it features the area known as Gold Canyon, with the Superstitions prominent behind the movie's representation of the Clanton ranch. During this time, Victor Panek contacted his neighbors in Apache Junction, Mr. and Mrs. J.K. Hutchens, to suggest the idea of building a dedicated studio in the Superstition area. Hutchens and Panek found a suitable site that was developed into Apacheland, intended to be the "Western Movie Capitol of the World". Construction on the Apacheland Studio soundstage and adjacent "western town" set began on February 12, 1959, by Superstition Mountain Enterprises and associates. By June 1960, Apacheland was available for use by production companies and its first TV western
Have Gun, Will Travel was filmed in November 1960, along with its first full-length movie
The Purple Hills. Actors such as
Elvis Presley,
Jason Robards,
Stella Stevens,
Ronald Reagan, and
Audie Murphy filmed many other western television shows and movies in Apacheland and the surrounding area, such as
Gambler II,
Death Valley Days,
Charro!, and
The Ballad of Cable Hogue. The last full-length movie to be filmed was the 1994 HBO movie
Blind Justice with Armand Assante, Elisabeth Shue, and Jack Black. On May 26, 1969, fire destroyed most of the ranch. Only a few buildings survived, but the sets were soon rebuilt to accommodate ongoing productions. A second fire destroyed most of Apacheland on February 14, 2004. The causes of both fires were never determined. On October 16, 2004, Apacheland was permanently closed. The Elvis Chapel and the Apacheland Barn, both of which survived the second fire, were donated to the Superstition Mountain Museum. Each structure was partially disassembled at the ranch, moved by truck, and reassembled on the museum grounds, where both stand today.
Columbia Ranch – Warner Bros. Ranch Columbia Pictures, 411 North Hollywood Way, Burbank, CA, purchased the original lot in 1934 as additional space to its Sunset Gower studio location, when Columbia was in need for more space and a true
backlot/movie ranch. Through the years numerous themed sets were constructed across the movie ranch. Formerly known as the
Columbia Ranch and now the "Warner Brothers Ranch", this
movie ranch in
Burbank, California, served as the filming location for both obscure and well-known television series, such as
Father Knows Best,
Hazel,
The Flying Nun,
Dennis the Menace,
The Hathaways,
The Iron Horse,
I Dream of Jeannie (which also used the
Father Knows Best house exterior),
Bewitched,
The Monkees, ''
Apple's Way, and The Partridge Family'' (which also filmed on ranch
sound stages). A short list of the many classic feature films which filmed scenes on the movie ranch would include;
Lost Horizon,
Blondie,
Melody in Spring,
You Were Never Lovelier,
Kansas City Confidential,
High Noon,
The Wild One,
Autumn Leaves,
3:10 to Yuma,
The Last Hurrah,
Cat Ballou, and ''
What's the Matter with Helen?''. It is commonly believed, though not the case, that
Leave It to Beaver was filmed here, ('Beaver' actually filmed (first season) at
CBS Studio Center – née Radford Studios and later at
Universal Studios).
The Waltons originally filmed on the
Warner Bros. main lot where the recognizable house facade was located until it burned down in late 1991. A recreation of the Walton house was built on the Warner Bros. Ranch lot, utilizing the woodland mountain set originally utilized by ''
Apple's Way, and later occasionally used by Fantasy Island TV shows. The facade remains and has been used in numerous productions such as NCIS, The Middle, and Pushing Daisies''. On April 15, 2019, it was announced that Warner Bros. will sell the property to Worthe Real Estate Group and
Stockbridge Real Estate Fund as part of a larger real estate deal to be completed in 2023 which will see the studio get ownership of
The Burbank Studios in time to mark its 100th anniversary. All historic sets and sound stages were demolished on October 26, 2023.
Corriganville Movie Ranch Circa 1937,
Ray "Crash" Corrigan invested in property on the western
Santa Susana Pass in California's
Simi Valley and
Santa Susana Mountains, developing his 'Ray Corrigan Ranch' into the '
Corriganville Movie Ranch.' Most of the Monogram
Range Busters film series, which includes
Saddle Mountain Roundup (1941) and
Bullets and Saddles (1943), were shot here, as well as features such as
Fort Apache (1948),
The Inspector General (1949),
Mysterious Island (1961), and hundreds more.
Corrigan opened portions of his vast movie ranch to the public in 1949 on weekends to explore such themed sets as a rustic western town, Mexican village, western ranch, outlaw hide-out shacks, cavalry fort, Corsican village, English hunting lodge, country schoolhouse, rodeo arena, mine-shaft, wooded lake, and interesting rock formations. This amusement park concept closed in 1966. In spite of Corriganville's weekend tourist trade, production of films continued. The action TV series
The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin used the Fort Apache set for many shots from 1954 to 1959.
Roy Rogers,
Lassie, and
Emergency! production units also filmed scenes on the ranch. In 1966, Corriganville became 'Hopetown' when it was purchased by
Bob Hope for real estate development. A wildfire destroyed the buildings in 1970. Parts of the movie
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) were filmed at Corriganville Park, as a stand-in for the
Spahn Movie Ranch.
Iverson Movie Ranch In the 1880s, Karl and Augusta Iverson homesteaded a family farm in the
Simi Hills on
Santa Susana Pass in what is now
Chatsworth, eventually expanding their land holdings to about . of which approximately made up the movie ranch. The Iversons reportedly allowed a movie to be filmed on the original 160-acre property as early as 1912, with the silent movies ''Man's Genesis
(1912), My Official Wife (1914), and The Squaw Man (1914) being some of the productions often cited as among the earliest films shot on the site. Many of the earliest citations, though, have turned out to be incorrect. For example, The Squaw Man'' is now known to have filmed a scene elsewhere in Chatsworth, a short distance southwest of the Iverson property, but did not film on the Iverson Ranch. By the late 1910s, what would become a long and fruitful association developed between Hollywood and the Iverson Movie Ranch, which became the go-to outdoor location for Westerns in particular and also appeared in many adventures, war movies, comedies, science-fiction films, and other productions, standing in for Africa, the Middle East, the South Pacific, and any number of exotic locations.
Buster Keaton's
Three Ages (1923),
Herman Brix's
Hawk of the Wilderness (1938),
Laurel and Hardy's
The Flying Deuces (1939), and
John Wayne's
The Fighting Seabees (1944) are just a handful of the productions that were filmed on the ranch. The rocky terrain and narrow, winding roads frequently turned up in
Republic serials of the 1940s and were prominently featured in chases and shootouts throughout the golden era of action B-Westerns in the 1930s and 1940s. For the 1945 Western comedy
Along Came Jones, producer and star
Gary Cooper had a Western town built at the ranch; this set was subsequently used in many other productions until the town was dismantled in 1957. Hollywood's focus began to shift to the medium of television beginning in the late 1940s, and Iverson became a mainstay of countless early television series, including
The Lone Ranger, The Roy Rogers Show, The Gene Autry Show,
The Cisco Kid,
Buffalo Bill, Jr.,
Zorro, and
Tombstone Territory. An estimated 3,500 or more productions, about evenly split between movies and television episodes, were filmed at the ranch during its peak years. The long-running TV Western
The Virginian filmed on location at Iverson in the ranch's later period, as did
Bonanza and
Gunsmoke. By the 1960s, the ownership of the ranch was split between two of Karl and Augusta's sons, with Joe Iverson, an African safari hunter married to Iva Iverson, owning the southern half of the ranch (the Lower Iverson) and Aaron Iverson, a farmer married to Bessie Iverson, owning the northern half (the Upper Iverson). In the mid-1960s the state of
California began construction on the
Simi Valley Freeway, which ran east and west, roughly following the dividing line between the Upper Iverson and Lower Iverson, cutting the movie ranch in half. That separated the ranch, and also produced noise, making the property less useful for moviemaking. The waning popularity of the Western genre and the decline of the B-movie coincided with the arrival of the freeway, which opened in 1967, and greater development pressure, signaling the end for Iverson as a successful movie ranch. The last few movies that filmed some scenes here included
Support Your Local Sheriff (1968) and Roger Corman's
Deathsport (1978). In 1982, Joe Iverson sold what remained of the Lower Iverson to Robert G. Sherman, who almost immediately began subdividing the property. The former Lower Iverson now contains a mobile-home park, the nondenominational Church at
Rocky Peak, and a large condominium development. The Upper Iverson is also no longer open to the public, as it is now a gated community consisting of high-end estates along with additional condominiums and an apartment building. Part of the ranch has been preserved as parkland on both sides of Red Mesa Road, north of Santa Susana Pass Road in Chatsworth. This section includes the famous "Garden of the Gods" on the west side of Red Mesa, in which many rock formations seen in countless old movies and TV shows are accessible to the public. This includes the area on the east side of Red Mesa that includes the popular Lone Ranger Rock, which appeared beside a rearing Silver, the Lone Ranger's horse, in the opening to each episode of
The Lone Ranger TV show. This area has been owned by the
Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy since 1987.
Lasky Ranch – San Fernando Valley Providencia Ranch The First Lasky Ranch in the San Fernando Valley was located on the Providencia Ranch. In 1912, Universal purchased the property and named Oak Crest Ranch. This old Universal ranch was built for the production of Universal 101Bison Brand Westerns. Hunkins Stables and Gopher Flats are close to Old Universal/Lasky Ranch in the San Fernando Valley.
Lasky Movie Ranch – Ahmanson 'Lasky Mesa' Ranch This area is noted for a filming location history of many important movies, including,
The Thundering Herd (Famous Players–Lasky Co. 1925),
Gone with the Wind (Selznick 1939) and
They Died with Their Boots On, "
Santa Fe Trail" (Warner Bros. 1940), and many others. From
The Moving Picture World, October 10, 1914 (page 622 relates to the Lasky ranch and page 1078 to the new Lasky Ranch): "The Lasky company has acquired a 4,000-acre ranch in the great San Fernando valley on which they have built a large two-story Spanish casa which is to be used in The Rose of the Ranch" which has just been started. The new ground is to be used for big scenes and where a large location is needed. A stock farm is to be maintained on the ranch. It is planned to use 500 people in the story. There will be 150 people transported through Southern California for the mission scenes. The studio will be used for the largest scene ever set up, the whole state and ground space being utilized." In 1963, the
Ahmanson family's Home Savings and Loan purchased the property and adjacent land. Home Savings and Loan was the parent company of
Ahmanson Land Company, and so the ranch became known as the Ahmanson Ranch.
Washington Mutual Bank (WAMU) took over ownership of Home Savings and proceeded with the development plans for the ranch. The public advocacy for undeveloped open space pressure was very strong, and development was halted further by new
groundwater tests showing migrating contamination of the
aquifer with
toxic substances from the adjacent Rocketdyne
Santa Susana Field Laboratory (SSFL)
experimental Nuclear Reactor and
Rocket Engine Test Facility. The
Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the
State of California purchased the land for public
regional park. The Lasky Movie Ranch is now part of the very large
Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve, with various trails to the Lasky Mesa locale. The property was sold to a conservancy in 2003, but some filming was done there afterwards, including some scenes for the 2006 film
Mission: Impossible III. More recently, it has been a hiking area.
Monogram Ranch/Melody Ranch Originally known as 'Placeritos Ranch', the ranch in lower
Placerita Canyon was commonly referred to as the 'Monogram Ranch'. Russell Hickson owned the property from 1936 until his death in 1952, and built-reconstructed all original
sets on the ranch. A year later in 1937,
Monogram Pictures signed a long-term lease with Hickson for 'Placeritos Ranch', with terms that the ranch be renamed 'Monogram Ranch.' From 1926, early silent films were often shot in Placerita Canyon, including
silent film westerns featuring
Tom Mix. In 1931,
Monogram Pictures took out a five-year lease on a parcel of land in central Placerita Canyon. The western town constructed there was located just east of what is now the junction of the
Route 14 Antelope Valley Freeway and Placerita Canyon Road. Today, this is part of
Disney's
Golden Oak Ranch (see below) near
Placerita Canyon State Park.
Gene Autry, actor, western singer, and producer, purchased the 'Monogram Ranch' property from the Hickson heirs in 1953. He renamed the property 'Melody Ranch' after his 1940
film of the same name, and his following Sunday afternoon CBS radio show (1940–1956). A
brushfire swept through 'Monogram Ranch' in August 1962, destroying most of the original standing western sets. The devastated landscape was useful for productions such as
Combat!. A large Spanish hacienda, and a complete adobe village survived on the northeast section of the ranch. The ranch has a museum open year-round. One weekend a year the entire ranch is open to the public during the Cowboy Poetry & Music Festival, held at the end of April. The Melody Ranch Studio was used in 2012 for filming some scenes for
Quentin Tarantino's
Django Unchained. The owners in 2019 were Renaud and Andre Veluzat.
Paramount Movie Ranch In 1927,
Paramount Studios purchased a ranch on Medea Creek in the
Santa Monica Mountains near
Agoura Hills, between
Malibu and the
Conejo Valley. It is now Paramount Ranch Park in the
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The National Park Service took over a section of the lot in 1980 and restored the sets, working from old black and white photographs. The NPS website lists movie and TV productions filmed there. and the eponymously titled Paramount Ranch, an alternative art fair founded from 2014 to 2016. The Paramount Ranch structures suffered near-total destruction during the November 2018
Woolsey Fire. By that time, it was managed by the
National Park Service, but some filming had been done here for
Westworld (TV Series) Seasons 1 and 2. Parts of the 2015 movie
Bone Tomahawk were filmed here. A campaign called The Paramount Project was launched as of November 16 to aid in the reconstruction efforts to rebuild Paramount Ranch.
RKO Encino Ranch The
RKO "Encino Ranch" was an movie ranch located on the outskirts of the city of
Encino,
California, in the
San Fernando Valley, near the
Los Angeles River and west of today's Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area on Burbank Boulevard. RKO Radio Pictures purchased the property, then still a
ranch bordered by similarly undeveloped land, as a location to film their epic motion picture
Cimarron (1931). The picture was a critical success, going on to win
Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Writing, Best Art Direction, and Best Make-Up.
Art Director Max Ree won the art direction award for creative design of the theme sets constructed on the former Jasmine Quinn Ranch, which consisted of both a complete western town and a three block modern main street built to represent the fictional Oklahoma town of Osage. In addition to
Cimarron scenery, RKO continued to create a vast array of diverse sets for their ever-expanding movie ranch, including a New York City avenue, brownstone street, English row houses, slum district, small town square, residential neighborhood, three working train depots, mansion estate, New England farm, western ranch, a mammoth
medieval City of Paris, European marketplace, Russian village, Yukon mining camp, ocean tank with sky backdrop, Moorish casbah, Mexican outpost, Sahara Desert fort, plaster mountain range
diorama, and a football field sized United States map which
Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers danced across in
The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). Also constructed were scenery docks, carpentry shop, prop storage, greenhouse, and three fully equipped soundstages averaging each. Selected movies that contain scenes shot on the Encino Ranch include:
What Price Hollywood? (1932),
King Kong (1933),
Of Human Bondage (1934),
Becky Sharp (1935),
Walking on Air (1936),
Stage Door (1937),
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939),
Kitty Foyle (1940),
Citizen Kane (1941),
Cat People (1942),
Murder, My Sweet (1944),
Dick Tracy film noir series (1945–1947), ''
It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (Bedford Falls),They Live by Night'' (1948), and many more. A
Dragnet episode, shot in 1953 for an NBC 1954 broadcast, was the last project to film on the ranch. Entitled "The Big Producer", it featured the then crumbling lot as the fictitious "Westside Studio". The ranch property was sold in 1954 to developers to put up the Encino Park housing tract, which featured modern home designs by architect
Martin Stern, Jr. Walt Disney's Golden Oak Ranch A strip of farmland that once was home to early filming locations including the Fat Jones Ranch, the Andy Jauregui Ranch and the Trem Carr Ranch became the Walt Disney Company's
Golden Oak Ranch starting in 1959. The ranch is located in central
Placerita Canyon near
Santa Clarita, California in the northern
San Gabriel Mountains foothills. It was named for the
Gold discovery by Francisco Lopez in the wild onion roots under the "Oak of the Golden Dream", in present-day
Placerita Canyon State Park. The Ranch was still being used for occasional filming when
Walt Disney took an interest in the property. In 1959, driven by concern that the ranches of other movie studios were gradually being subdivided, Disney purchased the ranch. During the next five years, the
Walt Disney Studios also bought additional land which increased the size of the property to .
The Walt Disney Company worked closely with the
State of California when a portion of the western border of the ranch was purchased for the
Antelope Valley Freeway. This construction was carefully planned so that it didn't intrude into the film settings. In 2009, Disney announced the expansion of the studio complex, with master planning and environmental impact studies commencing. The expanded site would be called
Disney |
ABC Studios at The Ranch. Disney productions that have done filming at Golden Oak Ranch over the past decades include Old Yeller, Toby Tyler, The Parent Trap, The Shaggy Dog, Follow Me Boys and, more recently, The Santa Clause, Pearl Harbor, Princess Diaries II and Pirates of the Caribbean II & III.
Spahn Movie Ranch The
Spahn Movie Ranch is a property located on
Santa Susana Pass in the
Simi Hills above
Chatsworth, California. The Spahn Movie Ranch, once owned by silent film actor
William S. Hart, was used to film many westerns, particularly from the 1940s to the 1960s, including
Duel in the Sun, and episodes of television's
Bonanza and
The Lone Ranger. A western town set was located at the ranch. Dairy farmer
George Spahn purchased the in 1953, from former owners Lee and Ruth McReynolds. Spahn added more sets and rental horses, making it a popular location for horseback riding among locals. This continued to be the location for various B movie and TV series film until the late 1960s. As the western genre became less popular, however, the ranch became almost deserted. The Spahn Ranch was the primary headquarters of the infamous
Manson Family by 1968. Spahn allowed the Manson group to live there rent-free in exchange for housework and sexual favors from the group's women, according to
TIME. The ranch and some residents are depicted in the
Quentin Tarantino film
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). The scenes for the movie were actually filmed at Corriganville Park in Simi Valley. A 1970 mountain
wildfire destroyed the
film set and the residential structures. The site that was the Spahn Movie Ranch is now part of the
Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park. Spahn died in 1974. The Century Movie Ranch was the main filming location with outdoor sets for the original 1970
MASH film and subsequent
M*A*S*H (TV series). It was used as a location in dozens of films, including a number of the
Tarzan movies,
Robin Hood: Men in Tights, the original
Planet of the Apes film and subsequent
television series. The Fox Movie Ranch property was purchased and preserved in the new state park,
Malibu Creek State Park, opened to the public in 1976. A few productions continued to be filmed there. ==Other original locations==