buckskin lady



buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady

buckskin lady


buckskin lady


buckskin lady


buckskin lady


buckskin lady


buckskin lady


buckskin lady
 


At The Movies ... in Owens Valley



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Bullwhip - 1958
(Alternate: A)
the Tall T
The Tall T - 1957
high plains drifter
High Plains Drifter - 1973

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Lone Pine Film History Museum

Lone Pine, Where the Real West Becomes the Reel West

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Movies/Documentaries/TV Series Filmed in Owens Valley

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Note: "OLLP" at then end of a text block indicates the text was taken from On Location in Lone Pine by Dave Holland.

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The Western Stars
Louise Brooks
1906-1985
     
louise brooks
Mary Carlisle
1912-
   
mary carlisle
Lili Damita
1904-1994
 
lili damita
Delores Del Rio
1905-1983
 
delores del rio
Yvonne De Carlo
1922-2007
yvonne de carlo
 
Dale Evans
1912-2001
dale evans
 
Virginia Brown Faire
1904-1980
virginia brown faire
 
Helen Ferguson
1901-1977
 
helen ferguson
Lois Wilson
1894-1988
lois wilson
 
Claire Trevor
1910-2000
claire trevor
 
Thelma Todd
1906-1935
thelma todd
 
Marie Mosquini
1899-1983
 
marie mosquini
Ruth Terry
1920-
ruth terry
 
Peggy Stewart
1923-
peggy stewart
 
Eleanor Stewart
1913-2007
eleanor stewart
 
Olive Fuller Golden
1896-1988
 
olive fuller golden
Barbara Britton
1919-1980
barbara britton
 


 
Mara Corday
1958-
mara corday
 


 
Ruth Roland
1892-1937
ruth roland
 
 
Iris Meredith
1915-1990
iris meredith

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the lawless breed

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Stories Behind the Names

mt whitney

The exciting westerns filmed in the Alabama Hills told of cattle drives, Indian battles and hold-ups, all of which really happened in and around Lone Pine in the 1800's. Art really has imitated life here.

There was even fight with the Paiutes out in the Alabama Hills once - shades of How The West Was Won - and the army from Camp Independence went out after bandits one time - just like in Yellow Sky!

And another time - just like in Rawhide - Tiburcio Vasquez and his bandits took over a stage station where he waited to rob the in-coming coach.

These things really happened so it seems appropriate - and it'll be fun - for us to look at the history of this land we're visiting. But let's do a little differently. Let's tell the story of the area by telling the stories behind its names.

It's easy to understand where names like "Movie Road" and "Gene Autry Rock" came from but what about "Lone Pine" itself and "Independence" and "Bishop?" And why do they call 'em the Alabama Hills" And why is Mount Whitney called Mount Whitney? For that matter, which one is Mt. Whitney? Let's settle that one first, even before we get to the history.

First of all, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States is not the tallest mountain you see from Lone Pine. That's Lone Pine Peak. It's the closest so it looks the tallest but it's really "only" 12,111 feet tall. The one we want is 14,495 feet tall and it's farther back and off to the right there, the one with the two jagged peaks just to its left. Look for this and you've found Mt. Whitney.

Second - and this will really make 'em believe you were born here - the actual summit of Whitney's very sharp-looping peak is almost flat. Not only flat but large enough for a football field. Such are the tricks our eyes play from some 15 miles away.

Third, Mt. Whitney came within a signature of being called "Fishermen's Peak." Up until 1864, Northern California's Mount Shasta was considered the highest mountain in the west but then, a State Geological Survey party discovered that several peaks in the Sierra were higher. The tallest was named after the party's chief, Josiah D. Whitney.

Later on, thee was confusion as to which peak was really Mt. Whitney. When that was settled in 1873, three fishermen climbed the true Whitney and christened it - what else?- "Fishermen's Peak." Some of the locals said they liked that name better than "Mount Whitney" - they didn't like Josiah Whitney; they didn't think he had investigated their big earthquake thoroughly enough - so they had their legislator introduce a bill re-naming the peak. But the governor refused to sign it and Mount Whitney it is. The first paths to its summit, by the way, wee scratched out in the 1880's by astronomers, far cries from the graded walkway of today.

"And did you know," you can say as you get to the fourth fact that will astonish the flat-landers, "that this is the land of 20-mile shadows?" Don't be worried saying that; it's true. Mt. Whitney and friends cast shadows that are 20 miles long.

Some sundown when you're in tow (clouds permitting), look east toward the Inyo Mountains and you'll see that while their tops still have sun,m the entire valley is in evening shade. And the valley's 20 miles wide here. (And the name "Inyo?" It's the Paiute Indian word for "dwelling place of a great spirit.")

The Mount Whitney group of mountains, incidentally, is much more formidable than you might imagine. It isn't just a bunch of peaks with one taller than the rest.

This particular grouping is actually a massive granite wall ore than two miles high and 15 miles long, stretching from Mt. Langley north to Mt. Tyndall. And between Olancha and Big Pine, there are 11 other peaks besides Whitney which are taller than 14,000 feet!

OLLP


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The Singing Cowboys
Ken Maynard ken maynard "The Lone Star Trail" lone star trail
Gene Autry
gene autry
"Back in the Saddle Again" back in the saddle again
Roy Rogers
roy rogers
"Happy Trails To You" happy trails
Tex Ritter
tex ritter
"High Noon" high noon
Jimmy Wakely
jimmy wakley
"Song of the Sierras" cowboy songs
Dick Foran dick foran "Moonlight on the Prarie" moonlight on the prarie
Rex Allen rex allen "Sky Boss" rex allen
Herb Jeffries herb jeffries "Lonesome Rider Blues" lonesome rider

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movie flat sculpture

Lone Pine

As for "Lone Pine" itself, that name came from a mining party camped along the creek in 1860 (possibly the Dr. Darwin French party from Visalia which came through here that year on its way to look for Death Valley's legendary Lost Gunsight Mine. They didn't find that - no-one has yet - but did discover silver in the Coso range southeast of Olancha; maps still show a townsite of Darwin.)

Whoever the miners were, they named the site "Lone Pine" after a tall Jeffrey pine standing where they pitched camp - Browning says it was where Lone Pine Creek and Tuttle Creek converged (if they did once join, it was obviously before the Los Angeles Aqueduct truncated them) - a lone Jeffrey pine long since washed away by flood, the history books say.

OLLP

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The Brenkert Theater Projector
(Courtesy Museum of Western Film History)


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Photos courtesy of Page Williams
lone pine filming
Filming The Lone Ranger" in 1938 in the Alabama Hills
lone pine filming
Early filming in the Alabama Hills.

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The RKO Camera Car
(Courtesy Museum of Western Film History)


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Buck Jones Movies
ridin for justice
gordon of ghost city
outlawed guns
mc kenna of the mounted

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The Alabama Hills

When you head west toward the mountains from Lone Pine in and enter the canyon with those tall hills looming up on either side of you - you have already entered the Alabama Hills. The name does not just apply to the rock protrusions in the valley beyond. And it was in these rounded hills during the Civil War - 1863 to be exact - that Southern sympathizers discovered placer gold.

At the time, a real go-get-'em Confederate cruiser, the Alabama, was in the process of sinking more than six million dollars worth of Norther shipping, so to celebrate her recent victories, the Johnny Rebs named their mines after her. Soon, the name applied to the entire range.

The hill just before the "LP" one (the first one you pass, the one right by the "Alabama Hills" name monument) is called Hoodlums' Peak, Pete Olivas told me, because of the hoboes who camped there during the Depression. At its base, where there used to be a hobo jungle, you can still see remnants from an even earlier time, the exploratory beginnings of a mine shaft and the rock walls of dugouts from the mining days. And from the movie days, Olivas remembers seeing cowboy film star Ken Maynard ride a horse down its steep slopes, "dust and rocks just a 'flyin."

As you enter the canyon, that small tunnel into the hill on the south side of the road is where the town's hardware stores stored their dynamite long ago.

OLLP

alabama
Confederate cruise ship - CSS Alabama

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trail street
the prescott kid

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Monache Meadows Cowboys  
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Sam Lewis & Sierra Lady Pack Station
 
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Ed Brown - Mt. Whitney Pack Trains Packer and Cowboy Poet  
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More At the Movies ... in Lone Pine
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This page was last updated on 21 June 2017