Tax Office Swamped By Movie Publicity Avalanche

A casual request for the address of Sarasota County taxpayer resulted in an avalanche of mail from that rugged rangeland of California where movie stars make cowboy films.

The request was made by Tax Collector Charlie Hagerman. It was addressed to Bruce Cranston who owns property in the north-east part of the county. The inquiry finally reached Cranston in California.

Like a shot out of an old .45 came a package from Pioneertown, Calif., a town tucked into the Yucca Valley.

Cranston, a wandering bard, had sent to Miss Hagerman three editions of the Pioneertown (where The Old West Lives Again) Gazette and a number of his western flavored poems.

He’s A Rhymater

“I Love to ride the desert trail that leads up to the sky,
Amid the purple sagebrush and yucca white and high.”

So the sagebrush Shakespeare told Miss Hagerman.

He also advised her not to change his address from Frushing, New York.

He reported he has for the last few years been a visitor to the Paradise of mesa and mirages where the Cisco Kid and Pancho, Gene Autry and the Riders of the Flying A Range roam the celluloid prairie.

The Mesa News

Along with this information, he sent copies of the monthly Gazette containing his odes to the open country. In them he sings the praise of Cactus Kate – “smiling like a bride with a pistol at her side”; of Jonesy’s Red Dog Rest – “I dropped into the Red Dog Rest to get a ginger ale.”

With these couples came news of latest goings on in the old-time community which apparently thrives as a real town and at the same time forms a backdrop for western movies.

Courthouse personnel have read the publication with interest.