Meena's Cabin in "Bonanza": Is this the last set built at Iverson in the filming era?

Here's a cabin that turned up in a "Bonanza" episode called "Meena," which premiered Nov. 9, 1969. The small wooden building, with its unusual roofline, would have been one of the last sets, possibly the very last set, built at the Iverson Movie Ranch while it was still a working filming location.

The surrounding rocks pinpoint the exact location where Meena's Cabin stood, which is on a piece of property that now contains an upscale estate at the end of a cul de sac on the former Upper Iverson. The above shot, taken from the rocks up above and to the east of the cabin — from an area near a familiar movie rock known as Eagle Beak Rock — shows the cabin from the opposite side of the first shot, revealing that it was in fact a full four-sided cabin and not just a "front."

That's the title character, Meena — played by Ann Prentiss — out in front of the cabin with a rifle, and Little Joe, played by Michael Landon, hurrying to try to keep her from killing somebody. (She happened to be taking aim at Candy, a good friend of the Cartwrights.)

Here's a look at Eagle Beak Rock today, at the top of the frame. You may recognize it from its hundreds of appearances in the backgrounds of chase scenes in B-Westerns, early TV shows and other productions, especially from the 1930s through the 1950s. The location of Meena's Cabin was approximately on that patch of grass near the center of the photo. The house partially visible at the far right is part of the property where the cabin stood, while the fence in the lower right corner belongs to a neighboring property.

Eagle Beak Rock turns up over and over again. Here it is at top left in the 1950 Columbia Western "Calamity Jane and the Texan," starring Evelyn Ankers and Jimmy Ellison.

Another appearance by Eagle Beak Rock, this time in an early "Bonanza" episode — "Desert Justice," which aired during the first season, premiering Feb. 20, 1960.

This is a cool shot from that same early Bonanza episode, "Desert Justice." In this view of the South Rim on the Upper Iverson, part of the concrete bridge is visible in the top left corner, and the white area at the top center of the photo is the creekbed for Fern Ann Creek (sometimes called Iverson Creek), which looks as though it was pretty dry at the time. The creek continues to flow these days, although it is usually little more than a trickle. The prominent rock feature at the far right of the photo, directly to the right of the horses, is sometimes called Gold Raiders Rock. It includes a smaller rock that was cemented on top of a larger rock, and this feature remains in place today.

"Bonanza" shot about 40 of its 430 episodes at Iverson during an impressive 14-season run on NBC (1959-1973). In my experience, when the series did shoot at Iverson it made great use of the place. It was one of the most successful of all television Westerns, and one of the most high-profile shows to shoot at Iverson. So if Meena's Cabin was in fact the last set built for filming at Iverson, it provided a fitting final chapter to the movie ranch's filming era.