Ancient movie steps near Lone Ranger Rock may be the oldest surviving artifact on the Iverson Movie Ranch

Filming "They Died With Their Boots On" in the Iverson Gorge in 1941

The Iverson Gorge continues to cling to secrets from its glory days as a filming location, but we got one step closer to unlocking one of those secrets on a recent expedition to the site.

The journey begins with this terrific behind-the-scenes shot from the filming of "They Died With Their Boots On," taken with the camera facing southwest, with Garden of the Gods and Lone Ranger Rock pinpointing the spot.

Almost unnoticed is a set of old stone steps near Lone Ranger Rock. Their origin is unknown — and may never be known — but my hunch is they date back to the silent film era.

Zooming in on the shot, this is about the best view of the steps that I've ever seen.

Also visible is an interesting flat slab. It looks manmade to me, but it's hard to be sure.

"The Luck of Roaring Camp" (1937): The steps make an appearance

Sightings of the steps in productions are rare, but I did spot them in this gravesite sequence in the old Monogram B-Western "The Luck of Roaring Camp," filmed a few years before "They Died With Their Boots On."

The steps are not a part of the action in the movie, but they're visible in the background. It strikes me that the steps had probably already been lying around for years without much to do.

Lone Ranger Rock and the Iverson Gorge's "Indian Village" (circa 1944-1951)

Lone Ranger Rock and its surroundings turn up again in a behind-the-scenes photo showing some of the adobe structures that were in place in the Gorge throughout much of the 1940s.

"Black Arrow" (Columbia serial, 1944): The "Indian Village" first surfaces

The adobes were part of a larger group of buildings the Iverson family called the "Indian Village," which filled much of the Upper Gorge and dated back to the 1944 Columbia serial "Black Arrow."

The behind-the-scenes photo offers a rare look at Lone Ranger Rock against the backdrop of the Indian Village.

The photo also provides another view of the steps near Lone Ranger Rock, although they're hidden in the shadows and are a bit hard to make out.

Zooming in on the photo, we get a better look at the steps.

We can also see what appears to be the slab, although it's less than crystal-clear.

Opening to "The Lone Ranger": Lone Ranger Rock's famous closeup

Lone Ranger Rock is most famous for its appearance in the opening sequence of the "Lone Ranger" TV series — a sequence that was filmed twice, in black-and-white in 1949 and again in color in 1956.

Lone Ranger Rock in modern times: The Iverson Movie Ranch's top "tourist attraction"

Lone Ranger Rock today remains a magnet for fans of the "Lone Ranger" TV series.

Lone Ranger Rock in December 2018

Lately the area below Lone Ranger Rock, like much of the undeveloped terrain of the former Iverson Ranch over the past couple of years, has become overloaded with dried brush, making access a challenge.

Below Lone Ranger Rock: The old movie steps can still be found

You have to look pretty carefully through the brush to find the steps, but they're still there.

Until recently, the steps below Lone Ranger Rock had been pretty much lost to history. I doubt that anyone ever looked for them until late 2018, when we made a trek into the area specifically in search of the steps.

All things considered, the steps were pretty easy to find. They were right where they "should" be, based on the various screen shots and behind-the-scenes production stills.

The Lone Ranger Rock Steps, at bottom right

They're not much to see, really, after being buried under decades' worth of dirt and brush. They're just a series of flat rocks, arranged into a crude stairway leading up toward Lone Ranger Rock.

There's just enough evidence to determine that the rocks were arranged this way on purpose. As far as why they were placed here, or when, or by whom, these may all be unanswerable questions.

While I was in the area, I also searched for the slab.

I figured if the round rock just above the slab could be found, it would pinpoint where the slab should be.

I was able to find the round rock without any trouble, but found no sign of the slab. The slab's disappearance bolsters the argument that it was manmade, because otherwise, why would it have been removed?

French poster for "Ben-Hur" (MGM, 1925)

The best theory I can come up with to try to explain the steps — and I suppose, the slab too — is that they were set up back in the spring of 1925 during production on the silent feature "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ."

"Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ": A crowd gathers at Lone Ranger Rock

The steps could have been installed to help position the extras and cast members who crowded into a relatively small area below Lone Ranger Rock for this scene in "Ben-Hur." The steps themselves are not visible in the scene.

The color footage shot in the Iverson Gorge was innovative in 1925. Much of the movie was filmed in black-and-white, but parts of it — including the Lone Ranger Rock sequence — are in early Technicolor.

The silent "Ben-Hur" also includes an early visit by at least one camel to the Iverson Ranch. While this may have been the first camel on the ranch, it wasn't the last — other camel sightings can be found here and here.

Are these the oldest movie artifacts on the Iverson Ranch?

It's pretty cool that the steps managed to survive all this time — and considering that they're probably close to 100 years old, they may well be the oldest surviving manmade artifacts on the former Iverson Movie Ranch.

Is a piece of wall art on the spy show "The Americans" inspired by the Iverson Movie Ranch?

I'm a big fan of the FX series "The Americans," about Russian spies pretending to be a normal American family living in Washington, D.C., during the Cold War.

"The Americans" episode "Darkroom" (premiered May 9, 2017)

I never expected to find a reference to the Iverson Movie Ranch in the show, but I did spot something in a recent episode that qualifies at least as an intriguing coincidence.

Take a close look at the artwork hanging on the wall at the left of the frame.

Here's a closeup of the artwork, which depicts something quintessentially "American" — an adobe village.

Indian Village, Lower Iverson Movie Ranch (ca. 1950)

Is it just me, or does the adobe village in the "Americans" art bear a striking resemblance to the "Indian Village" that stood in the Iverson Gorge in the late 1940s and into the 1950s?

"Arizona Territory" (1950): Iverson's Indian Village

The Iverson Ranch's Indian Village appeared regularly in movies and TV shows during the decade or so that it was in place in the heavily filmed Iverson Gorge, roughly 1944-1954.

Lobby card for the 1944 Columbia serial "Black Arrow"

The Iverson adobes also found their way into movie posters and lobby cards. This one includes a note at the bottom that wouldn't fly these days.

I love this poster for "Black Arrow," which includes an artist's rendering of the adobe village on fire. I'm not endorsing burning villages, I just like that someone went to the trouble to draw a version of the Gorge set.

Hopi House, Grand Canyon, Ariz.

It may be that both the Iverson Indian Village and the "Americans" art draw inspiration from the Hopi House on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, built as a living museum by architect Mary Colter in 1904.

"Hopi House," Iverson Ranch (ca. 1950)

In fact, the Iverson family is known to have referred to the largest structure in the Iverson Ranch Indian Village as the "Hopi House."

Hopi village in Oraibi, Ariz. (ca. 1899)

The Grand Canyon's Hopi House is said to be inspired by the much older Hopi village in Oraibi, Ariz.

I suppose most Hopi-style adobe villages have design similarities. Still, the best match among all the examples I've found is between the village in the Iverson Gorge and the one in "The Americans."

Lobby card for "Outlaw Country" (1949)

In this lobby card for the Western Adventure B-Western "Outlaw Country," Lash LaRue stands on the first-story roof of Iverson's three-story "Hopi House."

"Outlaw Country": Lash LaRue on the Hopi House

Here's Lash in almost the same spot, from the movie. While the movie shots aren't nearly as sharp as the lobby card, it's interesting to compare the two shots, which were presumably taken during the same filming session.

With Lash repositioned to the right, a dented area is exposed on the adobe structure. If you look again at the color lobby card, you can see this darker, recessed area between Lash's legs. Maybe there's a more polite way to say that, but I haven't thought of one.

Also note that the shadows are slightly different between the two shots. Based on the orientation of the buildings, I'd say filming took place in the morning, with the promo shot taken a short time after the movie shot.

"Black Arrow" (1944)

The "Black Arrow" lobby card, from four or five years earlier, appears to show the same section of the adobes seen in the Lash LaRue sequence. "Black Arrow" is the earliest production I've run across that featues these adobes, and production records indicate that the village was in fact built originally for "Black Arrow."

I've noted the spot where Lash LaRue will stand a few years later in "Outlaw Country." It's also worth noting that the rocks making up the Hole in the Wall area can be seen at top left. These rocks remain in place today.

Early shots of the adobes show that back around 1944 they had fake logs sticking out of them near the roofline, similar to what we find in the adobes in "The Americans" and in the real-world examples.

Those logs were gone by the late 1940s. But if one looks closely at the circa 1950 photo, the clearest shot we have of the Hopi House, it's possible to see where the wall was "patched up" after the logs were removed.

Quetzalcoatl flies — and kills — on the Iverson Movie Ranch

Quetzalcoatl — the feathered serpent deity of the Aztecs — made an appearance on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif., in 1946 for the low-budget PRC horror flick "The Flying Serpent." And low-budget or not, the movie produced at least a couple of noteworthy location shots, thanks to the magic of special effects.

"The Flying Serpent" (1946)

The movie's opening shot, above, includes some real-world Iverson features at the bottom of the frame, incorporated into a fake Aztec setting via a superimposed backdrop at the top of the frame. I've pinpointed some of the key elements of the shot in the photo below.

The adobe village seen in the bottom half of the shot was in place in the Iverson Gorge throughout the late 1940s, and turns up occasionally in old PRC B-Westerns and other productions of the era. The buildings were temporary movie structures and had a tendency to move around, so the key thing that pinpoints exactly where the above shot was taken is The Wall, a massive rock feature at Iverson that clearly never moved — until it was destroyed after the filming days so that condos could be built in its place. The Wall is barely noticeable in the above shot, but it's there, and Potato Rock, which sat on top of The Wall, helps identify it.

Another shot from the movie further incorporates real-world Iverson rock features into a make-believe world that includes ancient Aztec structures. In this shot we see the full spread of the Devil's Doorway rock features at the bottom of the frame, and another set of Aztec buildings superimposed at the top.

The labels make for a "busy" photo, but the simple version is this: The bottom one-third of the frame consists mainly of actual Iverson Movie Ranch rocks, with the rest of the shot created through movie magic.

This shot appears to me to be yet another special effect  — a smaller-scale composite along the same lines as the larger-scale shots above — combining some unknown Iverson rocks at the bottom with a superimposed background that includes a representation of an Aztec structure.

The movie also has a fun scene in which Quetzalcoatl flies down from Tower Rock in Iverson's Garden of the Gods and attacks a guy. For the most part, shots of the deadly serpent in flight appear to have been filmed in and around Bronson Canyon, including just before Quetzalcoatl shows up in Garden of the Gods in the clip below. Check out the clip:

 

Quetzalcoatl