I'd been hearing about Pioneertown from Heather for a while now and had seen her pictures of it and I knew I wanted to check it out on this trip! It's about a 30-45 minute drive from Palm Springs. Pioneertown started as an Old West motion picture set, built in the 1940s. The movie set was designed to provide a place for the actors to live, and at the same time have their homes used as part of the movie set. Roy Rogers was among the original developers and investors, and Gene Autry frequently taped his show at the Pioneer Bowl bowling alley (sadly now closed). According to IMDB, many films and TV shows were filmed in Pioneertown including Annie Oakley, The Gene Autry Show, and the TV show and Movie, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (with an extremely handsome Paul Newman).
Many of the buildings are inhabited (meaning, people LIVE in them! wow, right?) or are businesses. There's even a working Post Office.
The "Joshua Tree" above
(the boot above was actually taken at a flea market nearby)
Below there was a house with these little prayer areas (I guess you would call them), with circles of rock arrangements, and little "art installations" inside the circles. You could really call it "junk accumulations" more like.. ha. But really interesting little collections! I'm not sure if the home owner created these, or if visitors have added things, or maybe it's a combo of both. The whole thing reminded me of that movie Gas, Food and Lodging, of which I really want to watch again after going to the desert.
These old school desks were set up with old typewriters. Totally bizarre and fascinating at the same time. My first thought was "What if it rains?" and then I was like "yeh... it's the desert."
My first thought when I saw these little toy collections was that my boys would LOVE this.
Until next time, Pioneertown!
