Rawhide Rangers, 1941
In the years before Iverson's Western street was built at Sheep Flats in 1945, for the Gary Cooper movie Along Came Jones, a pretty spectacular adobe fort stood on the site for a while. Its history is a bit cloudy, but what's known is that it was in place from at least 1938 to 1941, appearing in a number of movies and serials during that span, and can probably be traced to Wee Willie Winkie in 1937.
Army Girl, 1938
The structure went through a series of changes over the years and had a few different looks in different films. In Army Girl it took on a white stone finish, while in the Western-themed movies it had more of a traditional adobe appearance.
Wee Willie Winkie, 1937
It's almost inevitable that the structure's history would be traced to Wee Willie Winkie, specifically the expansive India outpost that was built on Sheep Flats for this landmark production — a big-budget Shirley Temple movie that was said to include the most costly sets ever built at Iverson. I'm sure this is where the fort originated, but I've tried a number of times to match up the buildings in Wee Willie Winkie with those seen in subsequent movies and have never succeeded in doing so. (Update: I finally did have some luck with that — check out this post.)
Here's a shot from Fugitive Valley (1941), showing Cactus Hill in the background and placing the adobes near the western end of Sheep Flats. In addition to the movies cited above, the adobe complex appeared in Rocky Mountain Rangers (1940) and in the Republic serials Zorro's Fighting Legion (1939) and Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941).
It's believed that portions of the adobe complex were eventually incorporated into Iverson Village when it was built in 1945, but here again, I've never been able to make a positive match. Today Sheep Flats is home to the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village.
No comments:
Post a Comment