Pioneertown, the Old West That Stayed

Up a winding road above Yucca Valley sits a genuine eighteen eighties Western town that was never actually old. Pioneertown was built in nineteen forty-six as a live in movie set. The idea came from the actor Dick Curtis, who wanted a working Old West town where film crews could shoot Westerns and actually live between takes, so the false storefronts had real interiors.

A group of Hollywood investors, including the singing cowboy Roy Rogers and the actor Russell Hayden, made it happen. Main Street, spelled Mane Street here as a horse joke, had real saloons, a motel, a restaurant, and even a bowling alley, built in nineteen forty-six. Hundreds of Westerns and early television shows were shot here, among them The Cisco Kid and The Gene Autry Show.

The town's beloved music hall, Pappy and Harriet's, grew out of one of those original nineteen forty-six set buildings and today draws surprise concerts from stars as big as Paul McCartney and Robert Plant, playing a tiny desert stage a couple hundred people can crowd into.