Pioneer Town, where western history comes alive

 Pioneertown is known for its marvelous western facades, dirt main street, hitching posts, wooden sidewalks, and dozens of films, television series, and music videos that have been shot there over the decades.

From films like The Gay Amigo in 1949, and The Last of the Pony Riders in 1952, to more modern films such as The Gambler in 2014, and Ingrid Goes West in 2017, this modern-day ghost town has the perfect Old West ambiance.

Of course, two of my favorite music videos were shot there. The 2010, I Rep That West, by Ice Cube tops the list. Nothing better than a rapper riding into a hot dusty western town in a beautiful convertible lowrider surrounded by horses and townsfolk. Or, the 2016 hit by Cyndi Lauper, Funnel of Love, filmed in and around the town with a special appearance inside Pappy and Harriet’s.

The iconic Pappy and Harriet's in Pioneertown

A pink-haired cowgirl with a Brooklyn accent says it all when it comes to authentic Americana.

“Hey yuz guys,” Lauper may have said when finished with the filming. “Anyone know where I can get a friggin’ cannoli in these here parts?”

Of course, one film not listed among dozens is the one Laureen, my lovely wife, and I were in nearly ten years ago. We had bit parts about something to do with the West and a bunch of bad hombres - but when the film was completed and in the can, it never came back out.

I called my agent. “Look, Johnny Baby, the film was so bad that it was declared a national disaster. Find another career.”

“How about writing a travel column?”

A snicker came over the phone. “I’m sure that will pan out. Lose my number.”

Recently, I pulled on my Tony Lama lizard skin two-inch heeled cowboy boots, snugged up the emerald buckled three-inch wide belt through the loops of my Wranglers, knotted the bolo tie just right around the collar of my Rockmount shirt, donned my ten-gallon Stetson, and walked down the main street in Pioneertown.

Luckily it was very early in the morning and no one was around, or I may not have been able to escape with that outfit on.

Nope, Pioneertown revels in the realism of what life was like in the Old West days and did not need some big city dandy wandering around.

Back in the day, that would be right after the ending of World War II, a man by the name of Dick Curtis had a dream.

“I want to create a living, breathing movie set to shoot good Western movies,” he may have said.

In 1946, Curtis was able to wrangle 17 cowpokes to pony up the cash to fund the purchase of 32,000 acres of land just a few miles from the small town of Yucca Valley. Some of those involved included Roy Rogers, Bud Abbott, and others who bought into Curtis’s idea, and soon the place that would be known as Pioneertown was founded.

But, friends of Roy Rogers had wanted to name the place, Rogersville.

It is rumored that Roy himself said, “Rogersville, seriously? How about Evansplace?” 

To settle the matter, after a few rounds of arm wrestling, and a song written by Tim Spenser called ‘Out of Pioneertown,’ the eventual name of simply Pioneertown took hold.

A French couple was walking down Main Street and smiled at me while I tried not to topple over in the high-heeled boots I had worn. I could tell they were very excited about traipsing through such a rich movie history that Pioneertown offered.

The woman looked at her male companion and said in French, “Il a l’air ridicule.”

Since my French is very limited, I am sure she was talking about how every building along Main Street was very authentic and painstakingly constructed to resemble those that would have been found around the 1880s in the west of the United States.

I smiled and said, “Oui, oui.”

The male nodded and said, “C’est un idiot.”

Which I took as meaning what idiot would not want to visit Pioneertown while on holiday from a country boasting about eating snails and attending operas written by Ravel?

Pioneertown was not just a movie backdrop to film western films, it actually was a fully functioning community when completed in the late 1940s.

There was a grocery, a motel, the Red Dog Saloon (still in use today), restaurants, an ice cream store, a bowling alley (also still in use today), and other businesses that were functioning and making a profit - including a newspaper: the Pioneertown Gazette.

Lots of places for photo ops in Pioneertown

Non-movie types could purchase an acre of land with full utilities for as little as $900, which would be in today's dollars about a million buckaroos. 

Soon trouble was a-brewing for Pioneertown when in 1948 Dick Curtis stepped down as President of the corporation in protest over the decision made to cater more to Hollywood than to making Pioneertown a truly independent community.

In a rather strange set of realities, both the land sales and movie production dropped off until a producer by the name of Philip N. Krasne stepped up.

He was the bigwig producing the very popular television series, The Cisco Kid, starring Duncan Renaldo, which ran for six seasons.

Krasne saw the potential of Pioneertown. So much so that he signed a 25-year lease which again put the western town back on the map for both locals, tourists, and those cigar-smoking Hollywood big shots.

As I teetered through the town on this early morning, I was, as always, impressed at the care each structure along Main Street gets to ensure that anyone viewing the buildings truly believes they have traveled back in time. It is hard not to imagine this town was not a rootin' tootin' cow-punching, cow-poking sort of town.

Any moment I was expecting a drunk cowhand to exit the Red Dog Saloon, spit into the street, and grin at me.

“Hey, lookey,” he may have said. “We gots us a real live cow dude.”

Though it was early and nothing was open for visitors, there is a lot to offer while visiting Pioneertown.

Of course, there is the famous Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace which serves amazing food and drinks, as well as live music on various days of the week.

There is the Custom Leather and Saddle Shop where I actually did purchase a gun holster and belt in the years past. The Pottery Shop offers handmade pottery and a visitor can watch as these products are produced. There is an art studio where folks can dress up in historically accurate clothing for the time period and have their photograph taken.

And as mentioned, the Red Dog Saloon not only offers dining options but adult libations to boot. There is a large barn soundstage that can be rented out and occasionally offers live performances.

The Red Dog Saloon in Pioneertown

The main street offers photo opportunities galore for those who want to immortalize their visit and share on Instagram, Facebook, X, or whatever social media a person wants to utilize to show their friends and strangers they are in Pioneertown.

A perfect backdrop for western films at Pioneertown

There is the Bath House facade, the Jail facade, the Jack Cass Saloon facade, and many more for those picture-perfect moments. My favorite is the facade facade.

Pioneertown, a place for gunslingers

There is the Pioneertown Motel which offers plenty of rooms for those traveling for a night or two, as well as local Airbnbs to accommodate any traveler. And, there is camping available in the town itself.

With the beautiful mountains and valleys nearby, there is nothing but natural wonder surrounding Pioneertown - as well as the Joshua Tree National Park within half an hour's easy drive.

And of course, there is always entertainment awaiting the visit to Pioneertown on the weekends with old west shootouts along Mane Street.

What would be an old west town without hombres and sheriffs shooting the town up at scheduled hours for the tourists?

I’m sure my French friends in Pioneertown would have exclaimed, “Pas possible,” to that question.

For more information: https://visitpioneertown.com/

The Mining Town of Chloride, Arizona

Chloride, Arizona is known as the ‘Gem of the Cerbats.’ I had no idea what that even meant - the gem of anything to do with bats did not seem like a place anyone would want to visit.

I looked up potential dangers of hanging around with bats, especially upside down. There is the Salmonellosis disease which I think will make humans allergic to eating salmon. There is the Yersiniosis disease which will make humans say ‘Yer sister is a sissy’ too many times, and finally the Batasuarus disease which can make humans rather large and extinct.

Of course, I may have embellished those results, but still, it should not be taken lightly if bitten by an unwanted Chiroptera.

According to Deserae, the local fount of historical knowledge about the small town of Chloride who seemingly runs both the Mineshaft Market and the Arizona Visitors’ Center, the name comes from the minerals found in the nearby Cerbat Mountains.

This range runs for approximately 23 miles and is home to many of Arizona’s top producing silver mines from days in the past.

Ruins of one stamp mill in Chloride, Arizona

“Millions of dollars were pulled out of the mines located here in and around Chloride,” Deserae said. “We’re the only true living ghost town with over three hundred permanent residents and some of those mines are still producing ore today.”

I have learned in my travels, and some readers will tell me I’m wrong, that a ghost town generally has no one around, except ghosts, and no federal post office. Chloride actually has one of the longest running post offices in the state of Arizona. It opened in 1873, closed for a bit, and then reopened in 1893. It is still in operation today, and yes, I checked. 

On the left is the original post office in Chloride, Arizona

Sure enough, there is a poster with a handsome guy who looks a lot like me hanging on the left wall. ‘Wanted, for impersonating a travel writer. Reward $0, he ain’t worth it.’ Now, that’s a Post Office.

Silver Chloride, which the town is named after, has a long and confusing history. Long because it dates back to the ancient Egyptians and confusing because I have no idea what the brainiac chemical scientists are writing about. Let’s just say that so much silver was found in the nearby hills that a whole lot of people became rich and a town where nothing existed before.

History, like where I left my car keys, can be mystifying, so the story of when silver was found in present day Chloride plays in the same realm.

In 1860, six miners found silver in the Cerbat Mountains and began digging. That is what miners do, but the local natives did not take kindly to it. So much so that four of the miners were killed and two escaped west to seek help from the United States military.

Deserare pointed out on the map where two of the miners who were killed by the local Native Americans are buried just southeast of the Chloride cemetery. 

I paid a visit to the fenced off area of repose for the miners and said a prayer.

After the killings, the Cavalry arrived and peace was restored. Nope, not in the natives mind, but big mining diggings began anyway. 

By 1863, the town of Chloride was founded with over 70 mines in operation.

Chloride grew to be the largest town in Mohave County (that’s how it is spelled in Arizona) and was actually the county seat.

With a larger population, Chloride needed a jail

At its height, Chloride boasted over 2,000 residents, and where people reside they need the necessities of life. Soon there were five hotels, a bank, a pool hall, eight saloons, five restaurants, and four brothels, as well as six churches for all those who spent naughty time at the saloons, brothels, and maybe even the pool hall.

Yesterdays Restaurant and Saloon in Chloride, Arizona

Soon, a railroad spur was in place to transport the ore found in Chloride to Kingman and beyond. The train service also included passenger cars for locals, treasure-seekers, and the curious to visit this booming mining town nestled on the west side of the Cerbat Mountains.

Unlike many of these communities which dry up almost as quickly as they started, Chloride really only had a moment in its history of losing so many folks that it almost truly became a ghost town. During WWII many miners dropped their picks and shovels and picked up rifles and ammunition in the service of their country.

As the war ended, people started returning to Chloride but not just for mining, though there are still plenty of active mines in the area, but folks looked upon the small town as a haven from the ‘big city life’ and relished in the close knit community.

In fact, a lot of artists and musicians moved into the area to take advantage of the mild weather that Chloride had to offer and the beautiful landscape which can inspire such persons to wonderful creative moments.

I sat down for a moment on the exterior porch of The Thirsty Miner Soda Shop and Emporium located along North 2nd Street and started playing my harmonica. I felt inspired by the blue skies, wonderful vistas toward the mountains when suddenly the owner came out and smiled.

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought a cat got run over in the road.”

One true artist, not me, was Roy Purcell, a world renowned western painter who created marvelously brightly colored pieces of art depicting the beauty of the western scenery and way of life.

The late Senator Harry Reid once spoke of Purcell, saying ‘Purcell’s work reminds us of the mysticism of William Blake, the mastery of Michelangelo and the passion of Van Gogh - gifts he used with deep insight and compassion from the perspective of the ages yet with the poignancy of our own time and needs.’

And if proof of Purcell’s passion is needed, there is a section of rock murals laboriously crafted by the artist in the late 1960s on 2,000 feet of rock approximately one and a half miles east of Chloride along an easily maintained dirt road, appropriately named the Chloride Murals.

Roy Purcell's artwork near Chloride, Arizona

The images are those from Purcell’s vivid imagination and a great inscription painted along one of the murals is, “The Journey: Images From an Inward Search for Self.”

John R Beyer is search of a selfie

I sat upon a large boulder and did some searching of my inner self while viewing the murals. It did not last long, and I headed back to town - I was hungry and thirsty.

After quenching both at Yesterday’s Restaurant and Saloon, I wandered over to Cyanide Springs.

Cyanide Springs in Chloride, Arizona

Being a western town from the 1860s, Chloride offers a lot for tourists to engage in from gift shops, food and drink, museums, a visitor’s center, campgrounds, hotel accommodations, and regularly scheduled good-old-fashioned shoot-outs at Cyanide Springs.

Dead in the center of Chloride is a reconstruction of a section of the original town made with the wood collected from the nearby Golconda Mine and utilized by the locals to build the town of Cyanide Springs.

Actual timber from local mines to build the façade

Four actual miner’s cabins that were once used to house the families of some of the men working the mines are there in original shape, but now are occupied by gift shops and workshops for the maintenance needed on the structures. 

An actual theater, the Silver Belle Playhouse, is still in use, mainly for the Historical Society’s meeting place but can be used for various venues for the public.

I stopped by the Jim Fritz Museum which contains artifacts from Chloride’s heyday all the way back to the 1880s. Very interesting for anyone who finds learning things fascinating - and who doesn’t?

According to Deserae, “Our peak season is just starting and soon there will be hundreds of people visiting here each week, for a couple of hours or for a couple of days.”

As I drove out, I noticed the Chloride Western RV Park was pretty crowded and with the amount of vehicles parked in front of the Sheps Miners Inn, it may be hard already to book a room.

Chloride has a long history and the folks I bumped into were gracious, ready to share a story or two about the town, and truly seemed to love living in this not ghost town next to the Cerbat Mountains.

For more information: https://chloridearizona.info/

The Serenity of the Heritage House in Riverside, CA

The historical Heritage House in Riverside, CA

In 1873, a woman by the name of Eliza Tibbets got an unexpected gift from her friend, William Saunders, who happened to be a horticulturist at the United States Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C.

Knowing that Saunders liked to figure out the science of growing plants, we might presume Tibbets may have thought a nice bouquet of Camellias would be special. Those very rare flowering plants found in the far-flung lands of eastern and southern Asia would be charming to put on her windowsill at her home in Riverside, California.

When the package arrived, her friend had sent three Brazilian navel orange trees. He explained that the trees had come from Bahia, Brazil, and would grow very well in the semi-arid climate of the town situated alongside the Santa Ana River,

“I like oranges,” Tibbets may have said while donning a pair of work gloves and grabbing a shovel.

Turns out the trees did like the weather in Riverside and soon the citrus revolution in this Southern California town was in full bloom.

One of the orange trees planted by Tibbets is still thriving and can be seen at the junction of Magnolia Avenue and Arlington Avenue to this day.

By 1882, Riverside had over half of the entire population of citrus trees growing in California and people were making all kinds of moola-boola. Then, with the invention of the refrigerated railcar, oranges and other citrus could be shipped anywhere in the United States without rotting. 

By 1895, Riverside had become the richest city in the nation by way of income per capita.

As Laureen, my citrus-loving wife, and I wandered the beautiful green gardens of the Heritage House in Riverside recently, I regaled her with tales of growing up in the city of oranges.

The rear gardens including the carriage house and water tower

“I’ve heard those tales before. Many times,” she said.

I’m sure that meant that she wanted to hear more about the times my friends and I would ride our stallions through the acres of orange groves in Riverside on lazy summer afternoons looking for boyish adventures.

“I recall the time near Victoria Avenue . . .” I started.

“The tour is beginning,” Laureen interrupted. “You can finish your monologue later.”

You bet I will, I thought, as Docent Sandy invited us into the parlor of the rather large Victorian house located along Magnolia Avenue.

We were visiting the historical Heritage House which was built in 1892 wondering what it had to offer visitors in the way of Riverside history. As we stepped into the entrance, it seemed as though the residence had just been recently constructed. It is simply gorgeous - in a 19th-century sort of way.

The entrance parlor of the Heritage House

Docent Sandy was dressed in period costume and introduced herself to our small group of tourists, or as I like to refer to myself, historical researcher.

“The house is maintained in almost the exact way it would have appeared when Mrs. Catharine Bettner had lived here,” Docent Sandy said. “In fact, all the furniture, paintings, photographs, and other items in the house come from that time period, though they may not have all belonged to Mrs. Bettner.”

We later learned during the tour that all the items in the house were donated by people living in Riverside from their private collections when the Riverside Museum Associates purchased the property and converted it into a museum in 1969.

“Good time to get rid of great-grandma’s rocking chair,” a husband may have said. “Then I can get a wide lounger to take its place for game day.”

The Heritage House and all the belongings were as authentic as they could be.

Beautiful artwork abounds

“Mrs. Bettner had always wanted to live in a Queen Anne-style home and she got her wish after hiring architect John A. Walls from the firm Morgan and Walls out of Los Angeles.”

Turns out that even with detailed plans, the contractor made one terrible boo-boo as he went to turn the keys over to the new owner. He had forgotten to add the servant staircase at the rear of the house.

And we all know how that feels. Servants traipsing down the main staircase, how ghastly indeed. Laureen would have clasped her pearls in dismay at such an atrocity.

“John, my smelling salts, please,” she may say. “Jeeves just came down OUR staircase.”

The contractor sued Bettner. Bettner sued the contractor. And the judge said build the staircase and she will pay for it.

The total cost of the house, with the added servant staircase, was a staggering $13,500.00 dollars, in today's money would be nearly $400,000.  This actually is not bad considering the home boasts over 4,000 square feet of living space with an intricately carved staircase, (not the one for servants), multiple fireplaces that are inlaid with gorgeous colored tiles, and pocket sliding doors weighing four to six hundred pounds to close off rooms which glide like they are slicked with butter - and these doors are 132 years old. Try to get that warranty from Home Depot or Lowe’s.

The ceilings are designed in various patterns utilizing all sorts of native and imported wood that Docent Sandy told us but I forgot. Wait, my wife just nudged me: pine, redwood, and white oak. Finely crafted hanging lights are in each room showing nothing but elegance.

Beautifully handcrafted woodwork throughout the home

An interesting tidbit is that Catharine Bettner had moved from New York to California with her husband, James, in the late 1870s and knew about electric lights.  Even though electricity was not readily available at that time in Riverside, she had the lights installed in anticipation of retrofitting, so no changes cosmetically would have to be made to the house when electricity became available.

A very practical and forward-thinking woman.

Wandering through the residence truly pointed out how life was both similar and yet quite different at the same time, at the near turn of the 20th century.

All the comforts of an expensive home but with a few things missing, like air conditioning.

“The Heritage House is closed from June until September since the association desires to maintain the place as original as possible,” Docent Sandy said.

In other words, the museum is closed during the very hot summer months so visitors don’t faint while grasping for the banister while descending from the second floor.

“Oh my,” a woman visitor may say as she slides face-first down the stairs. “It is hot in here.”

As we entered the gracefully decorated dining room, Docent Sandy told us how Mrs. Bittner came to build her home along Magnolia Avenue.

The formal dining room

Turns out that the reason James and Catharine had left New York was due to James’s bad health. He was given less than a year to live unless he moved west to the warmer climate of California. They did and he lasted an amazing 11 years longer until passing in 1888.

When they arrived in Riverside, James jumped into the new citrus business not only planting trees but also building packing houses to prepare the citrus for delivery locally or eventually nationally.

“Back then,” Docent Sandy said. “Men had multiple jobs or careers to take care of their families. There were no pensions like today, so many men became wealthy working in this field and that field at the same time. James was a lawyer, a civil engineer, and a citrus farmer.”

I could feel Laureen’s eyes on me. I ignored them.

“So, when James died, Catharine took over his businesses and decided to build this house since she did not want to live in the house in which her beloved husband had died,” Docent Sandy told us.

Bettner was a very wise and shrewd business owner who wanted to make her late husband proud, So, under her guidance the citrus production flourished, and later on, when it was time to slow down, she turned everything over to her only surviving child Robert.

As the tour progressed we realized this was a truly special place to visit. Not only did it have a wonderful history but showed the love and respect the citizens had for this one-time small town in the West.

One of many fireplaces

It was their home and they took pride in it.

With the thought of preserving history, the Riverside Museum Associates wanted the residence designated on the National Register of Historic Places, which it received on February 28, 1973. 

For further information: https://riversideca.gov/museum/