Mysterious ruins found on the Iverson Movie Ranch

A portion of the Lower Iverson Movie Ranch, photographed in 2008

Soon after I began exploring the Iverson Movie Ranch several years ago, I ran across an intriguing bit of crumbling stone, brick and tile that I came to know simply as the Ruins. It's a relatively small and unimposing bit of construction by Iverson standards, but it captured my imagination nonetheless. The above photo contains a view of much of the Ruins, along with the impressive rock that was its main neighbor, which I call Hangdog.

(You may want to click on the photos to enlarge them.)

Besides the Ruins at the right and the multifaceted Hangdog on the left, the photo shows a portion of the Old Folks House (sometimes called simply the House), along with some San Fernando Valley development in the background at top right. Also visible in the distance, at top left, is part of Oat Mountain, which is often seen in the movies in the background of chases and other footage shot at Iverson. Directly above Hangdog — which appears in countless movies, by the way (more about that here) — are a number of other rocks that also make appearances in many productions.

The Ruins — detail of brick and stone construction

In this shot you can see a little bit of Hangdog — its "eyebrow and eyelid," if you will — peering out over a portion of the Ruins. I've heard various rumors about the Ruins since the initial discovery, but not much in the way of concrete information. The consensus is it was probably NOT built for the movies, which is in contrast to almost all other construction on the Iverson Movie Ranch. I've never seen it in any productions, although I continue to look for it.

The Ruins looking south, with Woolly Mammoth (aka Vultura's Trail Rock) in the background

In this view of the Ruins, Woolly Mammoth, or Vultura's Trail Rock, can be seen in the background. (The "Woolly Mammoth" name comes from the rock's appearance from a different angle than the one seen here. You'll find it here.) From this angle the rock has been described as looking like a saddlehorn (not to be confused with Saddlehorn Rock, which can be seen here).

Here's a firepit that was found inside the area of the ruins — a discovery that supports one of the theories about the Ruins, that they may have been a sort of patio and barbecue area associated with the Old Folks' House. I generally consider the construction of the Ruins to be associated with the Old Folks' House — a residence on the Lower Iverson that is believed to have been built in about 1928 and stood until the Porter Ranch Fire (also known as the Sesnon Fire) swept through parts of Iverson in October 2008.

Road past the Ruins — one of the few "paved" roads on the Iverson Ranch 

(Woolly Mammoth/Vultura's Trail Rock in background)

The House, which was generally not considered to be part of film productions other than very occasionally and tangentially, is gone now, having been destroyed by that fire. For the last many years of its life, it was not lived in, and by the end it was pretty decayed. Not long after the house burned down — but unrelated to the fire, as far as I know — someone also decided to tear down what was left of the Ruins.

Fortunately, I got photos of both the Ruins and the House before it was too late. I'll talk about the House in another entry. Suffice for now to say that the House, or Old Folks House, was built for the original Iverson couple, Karl and Augusta, to spend their golden years. It was later occupied by their son Joe, who ran the Lower Iverson through much of the peak filming period of the 1930s through 1950s. I figure at some point whoever was living in the House, probably Joe, decided to build the odd structure for some reason — maybe just as a barbecue area. Then again, maybe it was built for a movie that hasn't turned up yet.

Here's another portion of the Ruins that shows some of the tile work. This looks as though it would have ended up being where everyone sat, but whether it was built with that in mind, who knows?

Hangdog rises over the Ruins — the top of Bill Rock can be seen toward the left

The ruins were located in something of a "famous" area for fans of the old Republic serials, as they were right near where the fake front stood for Vultura's Palace (also known as Vultura's Temple) in the landmark 1942 serial The Perils of Nyoka (which is a landmark not only because it is considered one of the best Republic serials, but also, for location aficionados, it's an orgy of Iverson sightings from start to finish). You can find more about Vultura's Palace here, and more about the rock I call Hangdog, which connects the Vultura's Palace front with the Ruins (but not at the same time — the Ruins were not built yet when Perils was shot), here.

If anyone has additional insights into the Ruins, I would love to hear from you. Either way, I hope you'll leave a comment! Thanks.

Sorting out the many "Indian Heads" found on the Iverson Movie Ranch

At least four different rocks on the former Iverson Movie Ranch have been called "Indian Head" at various times, while a number of other rocks found on the ranch look so much like Indian heads that they seem to be begging for the name. Here's a rundown of some of Iverson's Indian heads:

"Perils of Nyoka" (Republic serial, 1942): Tower Rock (sometimes called "Indian Head")

Tower Rock is one of the most famous rocks on the Iverson Ranch. This view, in my opinion, presents the rock looking its most "Indian head-like," although other observers may see it differently.

As one of the most widely filmed rocks at Iverson, Tower Rock is also one of the most widely filmed rocks in movie and TV history. The Iverson family used the name Tower Rock to refer to the feature, but in the early filming era some filmmakers called it "the Pinnacle."

John Ford's "Stagecoach" (1939): Tower Rock and the Sphinx in the background

Tower Rock is often seen in tandem with its larger and at least equally famous neighbor, Sphinx. Sphinx has its own naming issues, including once having been called "Indian Head," which we will discuss below. More recently it has been called "Eagle Beak," a name that tends to still be used at times even though it's incorrect.

The arrival at Apache Wells in "Stagecoach," looking south toward Garden of the Gods

As a pair, Tower Rock and Sphinx are considered to be the defining rock features of the Iverson Ranch's fabled and heavily filmed Garden of the Gods. The two sandstone giants made a legendary appearance during the stagecoach's arrival at the Apache Wells outpost in "Stagecoach."

The "Stagecoach" sequence at Apache Wells was just one of hundreds of movie appearances for Tower Rock and Sphinx, going all the way back to the early silent film era. Click here for more about the locations in "Stagecoach."

Tower Rock and Sphinx in modern times

Above is a recent shot showing what Tower Rock and Sphinx look like today. Their location, in the Garden of the Gods on the former Lower Iverson, is known for its large, charismatic sandstone boulders — especially these two.

"The Golden Stallion" (Roy Rogers, 1949): Wrench Rock, on the Upper Iverson

This gargoyle rock found on the former Upper Iverson is a personal favorite. In the early days of my Iverson exploration I called it "Bobby," for reasons that probably wouldn't make sense if I tried to explain them.

I eventually learned that "Bobby" was well-established as an Iverson movie rock and already had a number of other names, including Indian Head, Upper Indian Head and Wrench Rock. I finally came to accept that it should be called Wrench Rock even though it may be the least glamorous of all the choices. It avoids confusion with all the other Indian Heads, and it's plain to see that the rock does resemble a crescent wrench.

"Fury at Showdown" (1957): Wrench Rock, from the other side

Incidentally, that's also Wrench Rock at the top of the page, seen from the other side in "Fury at Showdown." This is the rock's eastern profile, and you might also notice Pyramid Peak to the west, outlining the horse's ears.

Lone Ranger Rock — once known as Indian Head

Next in our list of Iverson's "Indian Head" rocks is one of the most familiar features on the ranch, but its original name has been largely forgotten. In fact, this rock is so universally recognized as Lone Ranger Rock that it is hard to believe it ever had a different name. But it did.

"Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" (MGM, 1925): Lone Ranger Rock long before it had that name

By the time the Lone Ranger rode up on Silver in the opening to the TV show in 1949, the rock that would come to be known as Lone Ranger Rock had already been appearing in movies for at least 25 years. And before it became Lone Ranger Rock, it was known as Indian Head.

Another familiar rock with an unfamiliar name: Sphinx, Eagle Beak ... and Indian Head? Yes!

Getting back to the Sphinx, part of its name confusion goes back to the 1948 Monogram B-Western "Overland Trails," starring Johnny Mack Brown — the source of the screen shot above. One of the key plot elements in the movie concerns trying to find a hidden mine. The mine is located near a waterhole, and there's an early clue about an Indian watching over it. Later we find out the miner has written in a letter to his wife, "There's a rock above the waterhole that looks just like an Indian head." After the miner dies, the search is on to find that Indian head and thereby locate the mine.

The Sphinx in 2015

Fast-forward to later in the picture and about the time we're ready to give up, Johnny Mack Brown says to his partner, "Hey Dusty, look — look at that rock. Doesn't that look like an Indian head to you?" And Dusty says, "Well, it sure does!" And it turns out what they're looking at is the rock we now know as Sphinx. With that kind of attention being paid to it in the movie — any actual discussion of the rocks in the movies is rare — it has to be taken seriously. So Sphinx, too, has a claim to the name "Indian Head." And, well, it does look like a head, after all.

"Stagecoach": Batman Rock — deserving of the name "Indian Head"?

What about the rocks at Iverson that look even more like Indian heads than most of those seen above, but have never been called "Indian Head" (at least, as far as anyone knows)? Probably the prime example is Batman Rock, shown above in a scene from "Stagecoach." To my eye it looks as though it could have come right off the Buffalo Nickel. Its appearance in the movie is part of the "reveal" of the ruins of the Lee's Ferry station, which has been destroyed in an attack by ... who else, Indians. I suspect the irony wasn't lost on "Stagecoach" director John Ford, and that the placement of the ruins directly below the big chief (not yet known as Batman Rock) was no accident.

Batman Rock in modern times

Batman Rock is named after its appearance in Columbia's "Batman" serials of the 1940s. I can't help wondering whether the filmmakers who shot it for Westerns back in The Day had their own names for it. At any rate, it's a spectacular rock — even today, after the vegetation has grown up around it and largely blocked the view of its face. These days it presides over a driveway into the condo area just north of Garden of the Gods, and despite everything it still projects strength and a certain quiet dignity.

"The Man From Colorado" (Columbia, 1948) (promo still from the Jerry England collection)

A lot of rocks will start looking like an Indian head if you stare at them long enough. Notice the rock all the way at the left of the frame.

It seems to me this rock, which does not have a formal name that I know of (although I consider it part of the "Three Kings" formation), could also reasonably be described as looking like an Indian head.

"Little Big Horn" (1951): Filmed by Iverson cinematographer extraordinaire Ernest Miller

Sometimes changing the angle even slightly can bring out still more of the "Indian Head" in a rock.

"Rocky Mountain Rangers" (1940): Three big rocks with stakes in the "Indian Head" debate

These three sandstone behemoths, along with Wrench Rock, Lone Ranger Rock, Batman Rock and others, illustrate some of the potential problems associated with the rock name "Indian Head." Once you start finding Indian heads in the rocks, it never ends.

Wild Bill Hickok's gravesite

OK, it's only his MOVIE grave, but still, it's pretty cool. Here's the grave as seen in the 1950 movie "Calamity Jane and the Texan," with a couple of characters who figured into Wild Bill Hickok's real life — Calamity Jane, played by Evelyn Ankers, and Colorado Charlie Utter, played by Lee "Lasses" White — paying their respects.

Here's the gravesite today, on the former Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. The exact location of the grave is overgrown with sagebrush, but the rocks in the background still look pretty much the same.

In the movie, which is also known by the title "The Texan Meets Calamity Jane," they spelled Hickok's name wrong on his tombstone, adding the extra "c" to come up with Hickock — presumably a common mistake. They did get other details right, including his death at the hands of Jack McCall in Deadwood, in the Black Hills, on Aug. 2, 1876.

Wild Bill, whose real name was James Butler Hickok, was 39 at the time of his death. History notes that Hickok was playing poker at Nuttal & Mann's Saloon in Deadwood when McCall shot him in the head. According to legend, Hickok was holding aces and eights, all black — a poker hand that since this infamous shooting has been known as the "dead man's hand."

Revisiting the Iverson Movie Ranch locations in "Stagecoach," John Ford's Great American Western

I recently took an in-depth look at director John Ford's landmark 1939 Western "Stagecoach," much of which was filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. The movie has been a source of confusion and, I think, some misconceptions, especially regarding the construction of sets. I was able to sort out a number of these details this time by going over the movie carefully.

"Stagecoach" (1939) — John Ford's Great American Western

"Stagecoach" contains three main locations represented by sites at Iverson, and they are essentially stops along the stagecoach journey that is the central plot element in the movie. Here are the Iverson sites in the order in which they appear in the movie and along the stage route:

1. Dry Fork way station

Dry Fork is represented by a single-story adobe building at Sheep Flats, west of Hook Rock. Sheep Flats is the area now occupied by the Indian Hills Mobile Home Village, located on Topanga Canyon Boulevard just south of the 118 Freeway. In the above screen shot, Hook Rock is seen near the center of the photo, above the wall and between the stage and the adobe building. Adjacent to the building are a low adobe wall and a wooden gate, through which the stage arrives. This wall and gate are of a similar design to a different wall and gate seen at the next stop along the journey, Apache Wells.

2. The Apache Wells outpost

Apache Wells is depicted only by a wooden gate and adobe wall, as seen in the above screen shot. The set was situated northwest of Garden of the Gods, and is the site of a famous stage arrival sequence with the iconic Garden of the Gods figures (Indian Head/Tower Rock and Eagle Beak/Sphinx) in the background. One of my misconceptions — at least, I now think it was a misconception — was that an actual building was constructed here for Stagecoach. I realized this time around that there is no such building. There are a few shots of an adobe that appear during this sequence, but these look like a studio construction to me. Here's a glimpse of that adobe behind the stage:

Again, I believe the above shot was taken in a studio. Among the visual clues, the background and lighting look like a studio shot. Another clue is that the set is always cut to and cut away from, rather than shot with the rest of the scenery associated with Apache Wells. Even if it is shot on location, there is nothing to indicate that the location is in fact at Iverson. It's worth pointing out that the appearance of this adobe is similar to the appearance of the adobe seen earlier as the Dry Fork way station (see photo above), which was an actual location set built at Sheep Flats. This similarity echoes the similarities in the gates and walls for the two locations. I'm not sure what it means, but maybe the producers were keeping things similar in appearance so they could interchange them if needed — in much the same way that low-budget cowboy stars always wear the same outfit so the footage can be used again and again.

3. Lee's Ferry

Lee's Ferry has been burned out in an Indian attack by the time it appears in the movie. As with Apache Wells, no actual building was constructed for this location. However, an elaborate set has been created to represent the burned remains of the Ferry station. The location for this set is pretty close to Batman Rock, which appears in the shot below. Batman is the large rock at top left that looks like an Indian head. In fact it looks more like an Indian Head than any of the four rocks at Iverson that have been called "Indian Head" — it looks as if it just came off a buffalo nickel. It got the name Batman because of its appearance in an early Batman serial. The set for Lee's Ferry is north and a little bit west of Batman Rock, placing it in close proximity to the set (gate and wall) for Apache Wells. I would say Apache Wells is southwest of Lee's Ferry, but that's a rough approximation.

Lee's Ferry is introduced with a pan shot I've always liked, following the stage as it arrives and slowly revealing the destruction. Early in this pan we see a triple-stacked rock that is obviously fake:

The triple stack is in the top left corner of the above shot.

After the pan showing the remains of Lee's Ferry, the movie quickly cuts to Kern River (above), which is consistent with the kind of "cutting and pasting" Ford does throughout, notably interspersing Iverson and Monument Valley.

Monument Valley, Utah

A number of other shots of Iverson also appear in the movie, but these are generally minor items in the movie. Among them is a brief shot of Hole in the Wall, a feature of the Upper Gorge, just off Redmesa Drive. In the movie it has "smoke signals" coming from the top of it:

Another Iverson feature seen in "Stagecoach" is Hawk Rock, which appears in a brief scene with three mounted riders, Native Americans, descending below it. The rock is shown from an unusual angle that would make it hard to recognize if one hadn't walked along the sidewalk on Redmesa Drive and looked up at Hawk Rock from a bit south of it, which reveals that exact same angle. I've discussed this previously, in an entry about Hawk Rock that can be found by clicking here.

The Iverson Church wasn't originally a church

Update (April 12, 2014): I've done a more recent, updated version of this post, which you can read by clicking here. The older version below remains pretty much as I originally published it, and contains some information that didn't make it into the newer post. But in my opinion, if you had to pick one or the other as the place to start ... I'd go to the newer post. (Again, click here to go to the newer post.)

Film location researcher Bill Sasser tipped me off about a 1947 movie called The Millerson Case, part of a series of Crime Doctor movies from Larry Darmour Productions starring Warner Baxter, originally distributed to theaters by Columbia. The series is usually set in the big city, and so it rarely ventures into rustic Iverson territory. But in this installment the lead character goes on a hunting trip and finds himself in a small country town called Brook Falls — played by Iverson's Western street, sometimes called El Paso Street or Iverson Village.

Among a number of important finds in this movie is probably the first film appearance of what would become the Iverson Church. Tracking the release dates of movies in which the church appears — and there are only a few of them, all released from 1947 to 1949 — I've become convinced that the church was built specifically for The Millerson Case, which came out in May 1947, a couple of months before its next known film appearance — in the Hopalong Cassidy feature The Marauders — and a few months before the church would make the first of what are probably its most commonly seen appearances these days, in a string of PRC-produced B-Westerns starring Eddie Dean and Lash LaRue.

The most surprising twist in the story of the church is that when it was first built, it wasn't a church. It was a schoolhouse. It was subsequently modified to make it look like a church — with arched tops added to the two front windows and a taller turret, complete with arched window, replacing the bell tower, transforming it into a steeple. Above is a slightly askew shot from one of the late 1947 to early 1949 B-Westerns from PRC or its spinoff, Western Adventure, showing the church as a church. The tall rock to the left of the steeple, also visible in the top photo, is known as Church Rock, obviously because of its proximity to the church.

Location expert Tinsley Yarbrough offers what seems to be the most plausible explanation for the transformation of the schoolhouse into a church: It was probably undertaken by United Artists for The Marauders, where the building again plays a major role, this time as a church. Since I first published this post I had a chance to see The Marauders, and I can confirm that the movie is set almost entirely in and around the church. I agree with Tinsley that in all likelihood the producers of that Hopalong Cassidy movie were the ones who transformed the schoolhouse into a church — and it retained that identity for the remainder of its short life.

My original theory was that PRC had something to do with the construction of the church, but PRC was notoriously low-budget, and now that the Crime Doctor and Hoppy movies have surfaced with their more meaningful use of the building, that theory can be put to rest. I find it interesting too that once PRC begins shooting in the area — and the company was there a lot from 1947-1949, with Eddie and Lash — the church is always there, in the background, but it's never brought to the foreground or incorporated into the story.

Here's another shot of the schoolhouse in The Millerson Case, giving a better look at the original turret or bell tower. The schoolhouse plays a central role in the plot of the movie — as headquarters for treating an outbreak of typhoid fever. The building is featured far more in The Millerson Case and The Marauders than in any other movie I've seen.

Here's one more view of the schoolhouse in The Millerson Case, with a portion of Iverson Village also seen. The building on the right can easily be matched with the second photo, after the schoolhouse down at the end of town became the church down at the end of town. Note that horse-drawn carts and more modern vehicles such as the stylish coupe in the top photo coexist in the small country town depicted in The Millerson Case.