Gene Autry, the most air-minded Hollywoodian, flew the entire company of "The Cowboy and the Indian" to their location site at Pioneertown, California, 125 miles east, in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains.
Notified that Autry wanted to fly his entire company there from Hollywood to film "The Cowboy and the Indian." in nearby Pioneertown, citizens of Yucca Village, purchased Army surplus landing strip section and in one day laid an S-shaped strip each runaway 3000 feet long.
Alan Hale Jr., has an important supporting role with Gene Aurty in Beyond the Purple Hills," filmed at Pioneertown, California.
The Old West isn't dead yet. It has recently had a re-birth in the founding of a real, old frontier town, Pioneertown by name, that will stand as a living monument to the West that was.
The Western is now before the camera at Pioneertown, with John English directing since last September when he was seriously injured be the explosion of a cannon during a television filming.
Pioneertown, in the "high desert" above Palm Springs, got its start as a permanent set for cowboy-western movies. About 150 were filmed there, including such classics as "Annie Oakley," "The Cisco Kid" and the Hopalong Cassidy" series.