Random Old Newspaper Articles from 1946 through 1996. Fifty years worth of the unique history of Pioneertown California.
Pioneertown hosts a 40K Biathlon race today, including a 10K run and 30K bicycle trip, starting and finishing at Pioneertown Palace. Men and women compete in age groups of 14-19, 20-29, 30-39 and 40-up, in relays as well as individuals and five-person teams.
It lies in a tranquil valley of more than 13,000 acres, ringed by sawtooth mountains, some 22 miles from Big Bear Lake. The surroundings are shrouded in both fact and fantasy, with names like Deadman’s Dry Lake, Old Woman Springs, Duncan Flats, Black Lava Butte and Devil’s Garden.
A fire that may have been started by a campfire burned 2,000 acres of brush in rough terrain Tuesday before firefighters controlled it, said a California Department of Forestry captain.
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.
The festival will feature an art show, chuckwagon dinner, Western dancing, mini-rodeo, several Western melodramas and related Western activities for artists, art patrons, families and the general public.
With its dirt roads, Old West-style buildings complete with horse hitching posts and quiet serenity, Pioneertown has a real western charm.
A nightclub owner, contractor, country singer and all-around good guy, Allen also was a sometime member of the Tucson band Giant Sand, with whom he appeared in Tucson on several occasions.
Walsh is one of about 300 residents of Pioneertown proper, a square-mile community in the hills near Yucca Valley, in Southern California's high desert near Palm Springs.
Pioneertown: An Oasis of the Old West Constance Walsh was proud of her latest treasure: the back end of a 1951 Studebaker. She found it in a wash near her home and had a town official hail it from her…
Pioneertown residents can't agree whether to cling to their backwater identity or court the entertainment industry, which built and then forgot the high desert town.