Kanab, Utah

Kanab, Utah calls itself Little Hollywood, and the nickname was earned. Filmmakers discovered the red-rock canyons around this Kane County town in the early days of Hollywood westerns, and many motion pictures followed over the decades, including The Outlaw Josey Wales, Sergeants Three, and the original Planet of the Apes. Television productions ranging from Gunsmoke to Have Gun Will Travel used the surrounding landscape as a permanent backlot.

The Parry brothers, who bought the property in nineteen twenty-eight, built up the local Parry Lodge into a favorite of Hollywood directors and their casts. Filmmakers and crews who worked here, including on Buffalo Bill in the nineteen forties, helped the nickname stick. The Little Hollywood Museum in town preserves original sets and memorabilia from more than a century of film production that turned one of Utah's most remote outposts into one of its best-known destinations.