Historic Newspaper Archives

Johnson's Hollywood featured image

Johnsons Hollywood

Aside to pedestrians: PIoneertown, the new Hollywood for western films near Palm Springs, has a law set down by movie star president Russell Hayden. You can't drive your car on the main street. It's unpaved, will remain that way, and only for horses and people.
Apr. 21, 1949 featured image

Hollywood Film Shop

Taking movies on location is so big a business that a new town has spread up to handle it. A bunch of Hollywoodities run a clearing in the desert called Pioneertown where the chief thoroughfare is "Mane Street," the hay barn is a sound stage and half the buildings are false fronts.
May 1, 1949 - The Times Herald

Town Built For Western Film Scenes

The latest movie moviemaker the Pioneertown people enticed there was Gene Autry, who usually flies hundreds of miles to find backgrounds for his Columbia westerns. They persuaded him Pioneertown looked just as good as Arizona and was considerably closer.
May 1, 1949 featured image

Autry Flies Cast To Location Site

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.
Town incorporated featured image

Town Incorporated for Location Work

The latest movie moviemaker the Pioneertown people enticed there was Gene Autry, who usually flies hundreds of miles to find backgrounds for his Columbia westerns. They persuaded him Pioneertown looked just as good as Arizona and was considerably closer.
May 1, 1949 - The Ponca City News featured image

Hollywood

Hollywood By Erskine Johnson Cafe with a heart: Abbott’s Backstage is the only restaurant in America where the owner gets clipped every day. The owner is comic Bud Abbott, who has been losing money on it ever since it opened.…

May 19, 1949 featured image

Rivals Get Together

Just to prove that all isn't knives in the back out Hollywood way. Gene Autry is filming practically all of his current film, "The Cowboy and the Indian," at Pioneertown, Calif. Roy Rogers owns a good slice of the place.
May 21, 1949 featured image

Village Builds Airstrip for Film

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.