Back in the early years of the talkies, Hollywood discovered an obscure ranch outside of Los Angeles where film companies could shoot Westerns.
Westerns were the most popular genre of the era, and the "Mystery Adobe Ranch," as it later came to be known, appeared in a number of the early talking Westerns, spanning a period roughly from 1932 to 1937.
The ranch enjoyed a brief but productive run as a go-to filming location, and can be seen in movies from Universal, Columbia, RKO, Mascot, Republic and other studios.
Early cowboy stars who made movies on the mystery ranch included Tom Mix, Buck Jones, Hoot Gibson, Charles Starrett, Bob Steele and Harry Carey.
By the time people like myself and my film historian colleagues came along and started trying to figure out where those old Westerns were shot, the "mystery ranch" was long gone.
in Thousand Oaks, in modern times (bottom)
But that usually doesn't deter us. Most old filming locations — the buildings, at least — are gone now, but we try to figure out where they were anyway.
Sometimes it's a ridgeline that provides the best clue, as in this widely circulated "then and now" shot from the Janss Conejo Ranch, a historic filming location in Thousand Oaks, Calif.
With Janss Conejo — known today as Wildwood Park — the ridge is especially distinctive, which makes pinpointing the location relatively easy. We usually don't have this much to go on — and usually don't need it.
But the Mystery Adobe Ranch was different — a mystery so persistent that many of us feared it would never be solved. But everything changed earlier this month, when we had a breakthrough.
The first domino fell when Marc Wanamaker, who maintains the exhaustive repository of Hollywood history known as the Bison Archives, discovered a pertinent reference in some old Columbia files.
The Columbia document referenced something called the "Holman Ranch," noting that it was in Calabasas. Marc sent out word to a group of movie historians, and none of us had ever heard of the Holman Ranch.
They say two heads are better than one, and in this case we had about six heads involved. We all started doing follow-up, whether it was reaching out to local historians, scouring aerials or poring over old newspaper clippings.
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After Jerry Schneider found a historical reference to a possible location near Calabasas for a Holman Ranch, I went out to the location to see whether it was the right spot ... and bingo! It was a perfect match.
This shot from "Terror Trail" shows a part of the old ranch, along with the hills to the north.
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Those hills are still there, and still look pretty much the same.
One of the best surprises from my visit to the site involves this huge oak tree, which was situated just in front of the main ranch house and made appearances in almost all of the movies filmed on the ranch.
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I was delighted to find that the giant oak tree has survived — and it hasn't really changed all that much, although today it looks like an older and possibly wiser version of its younger self.
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The former ranch location has been preserved as public land, and today is part of Malibu Creek State Park. It's open to hikers, with an access point near Liberty Canyon Road and Park Vista Road.
Congratulations to all the dedicated researchers who have been tracking this unusual filming location for years, and a big shout-out to everyone who was part of the great collaboration that finally solved the mystery.
