This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information.(August 2023) |
Pioneertown, California | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 34°09′16″N116°29′55″W / 34.15444°N 116.49861°W | |
Country | United States |
State | California |
County | San Bernardino |
Elevation | 4,055 ft (1,236 m) |
Population (2006) | |
• Total | 420 |
Time zone | UTC−08:00 (Pacific (PST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC−07:00 (PDT) |
ZIP Codes | 92268 |
Area codes | 442/760 |
FIPS code | 06-57358 |
GNIS feature ID | 247574 [1] |
Pioneertown is an unincorporated community of the Morongo Basin region of the High Desert in San Bernardino County, California, United States. It is an 1880s-themed town developed as a shooting location for actors working on Western films and TV series with businesses and residences. The Mane Street Historic District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The winding, 4-mile (6.4 km) drive northwest to Pioneertown from Yucca Valley has been designated a California Scenic Drive and the area is now surrounded by privately and federally protected lands. The Sawtooths are a small mountain range to the south; Black Hill is to the north.
Actor Dick Curtis started up the town in 1946 as an 1880s themed live-in Old West living, breathing motion-picture set. [2] The town was designed to provide a place for production companies to enjoy while also using their businesses and homes in movies.
Pioneertown's founders intended the area to be a residential area with Mane Street acting as both a movie set and the town's commercial district. [3]
Hundreds of Westerns and early television shows were filmed in Pioneertown, including The Cisco Kid and Edgar Buchanan's Judge Roy Bean .
Dick Curtis, Roy Rogers and Russell Hayden were some of the original developers and investors. Gene Autry filmed his weekly show in town for five years, using the buildings and businesses as part of the film set.
The Pioneer Bowl is still an operating bowling alley. [4] The third building to be built in Pioneertown, Pioneer Bowl was used for recreation for the residents, actors and crew after filming. Roy Rogers made the front page of the local newspaper when he opened the bowl with a strike on Lane one. He bowled a 211 game in his cowboy boots with Dale Evans and 200 town folk watching.
Bowling leagues were an active part of American culture, and dozens of businesses had leagues at Pioneer Bowl, especially after western films were no longer being made in town. Many locals remember being pin boys for the bowl until some of the first automatic pinsetters made by Brunswick were installed.
The Thompson and White family partnership built the bowl in 1946. Mrs. White volunteered to be the first postmistress of Pioneertown, and the first post office was located inside the bowling alley.
The werewolf movie Howling 7 was filmed in Pioneertown and used many of its locals as cast members.
In 2020, Pioneertown's Mane Street area was recognized as a historic district by the National Register of Historic Places. [5]
As of 2019 [update] , Pioneertown had a population of 420. [6] [ failed verification ]
In July 2006, parts of Pioneertown were burned in the Sawtooth Complex fire, which also burned into Yucca Valley and Morongo Valley. [7] Firefighters managed to save the historic movie-set buildings, but much of the surrounding desert habitat was damaged. [8] Among the buildings saved was Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace, a longtime local club and landmark built within the town's original and only gas station, which counts among its regular patrons notable musicians, including Eric Burdon and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin.
Mane Street in downtown Pioneertown is open to the public.
As Pioneertown is a working movie set, commercial production and photography is allowed by permit only.
On January 18, 2019, the Kidz Bop Kids used Pioneertown as the set for their music video for the cover of Lil Nas X's song, "Old Town Road".
In 2023, San Bernardino County officials announced plans to apply generic commercial zoning to Pioneertown's historic district. [9] [10]
As a tourist town, Pioneertown offers reenacted western-style gun shows, live music, a film museum, pottery classes, and horse camping.
San Bernardino County, officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the population was 2,181,654, making it the fifth-most populous county in California and the 14th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is San Bernardino.
Morongo Valley is a census-designated place (CDP) on State Route 62 in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 3,552 at the 2010 census, up from 1,929 at the 2000 census. The town is bordered by Yucca Valley, California.
Yucca Valley is an incorporated town in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 21,738 as of the 2020 census. Yucca Valley lies 20 miles (32 km) north of Palm Springs, and 49 miles (79 km) east of San Bernardino. Bordered to the south by the Joshua Tree National Park and to the west by the San Bernardino Mountains, the town of Yucca Valley is located in the Mojave Desert at roughly 3,300 feet (1,000 m) above sea level.
Twentynine Palms is a city in San Bernardino County, California. It serves as one of the entry points to Joshua Tree National Park.
Amboy is an unincorporated community in San Bernardino County, in California's Mojave Desert, west of Needles and east of Ludlow on historic Route 66. It is roughly 60 miles (97 km) northeast of Twentynine Palms. As of 2020, the town's business district still contained a post office, a historic restaurant-motel, and a Route 66 tourist shop, all operated by the town's population of four people. As of 2024, only the gas station was open, and the population was zero.
Area codes 760 and 442 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the U.S. state of California. These area codes serve an overlay complex that comprises much of the southeastern and southernmost portions of California. It includes Imperial, Inyo, and Mono counties, as well as portions of North County San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Kern counties. Area code 760 was created on March 22, 1997 in a split of area code 619. Area code 442 was added to the same area on November 21, 2009.
State Route 247 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California. The road passes through the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, connecting SR 62 in Yucca Valley to Interstate 15 (I-15) in Barstow. SR 247 runs along Old Woman Springs Road between Yucca Valley to Lucerne Valley, and Barstow Road between Lucerne Valley and Barstow. SR 247 was designated by the California State Legislature in 1969; the county roads along that route were given to the state in 1972.
State Route 62 is a state highway in the U.S. state of California that cuts across the Little San Bernardino Mountains in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Its western terminus is at Interstate 10 in unincorporated Riverside County outside the borders of Whitewater and Palm Springs. Its eastern terminus is at the Arizona state line just east of Parker, Arizona. The highway passes through the city of Twentynine Palms and along the northern boundary of the Joshua Tree National Park.
Landers is an unincorporated community in the High Desert region of the Mojave Desert, in San Bernardino County, California. Landers' population, as of 2017, is 2,982 people. Its residents are sometimes referred to as "Landroids"—an allusion to the popular UFO culture in the area—and its official slogan is "Beautiful Skies, Miles of Smiles," adopted pursuant to a contest held by the Landers Association in early 2014. It was submitted by Ms. McCall's 3rd and 4th grade class at Landers Elementary School and was unveiled on June 10, 2014. However, for almost half a century, Landers has been known to its residents as "the land of 1000 vistas".
Johnson Valley is a small unincorporated community in San Bernardino County in Southern California between Victor Valley and Morongo Basin areas of the High Desert region of California. It is north of Highway 247 in the Mojave Desert, and north by northwest of Yucca Valley. It is bordered by the San Bernardino Mountains to the south, Lucerne Valley to the west, and Landers to the east.
The Morongo Basin is an endorheic basin and valley region located in eastern San Bernardino County, in Southern California.
The Sawtooth Complex fire was a group of wildfires in San Bernardino County in the U.S. state of California in the summer of 2006. The Complex was made up of the Sawtooth, Waters, and Ridge fires, and burnt in chaparral two miles (3.2 km) east of Yucca Valley.
The Morongo Unified School District (MUSD) is a public education governing body in the Mojave high desert of Southern California. MUSD has more than 1,100 employees who provide educational services to 9,301 students.
High Desert is a vernacular region with non-discrete boundaries covering areas of the western Mojave Desert in Southern California. The region encompasses various terrain with elevations generally between 2,000 and 4,000 ft above sea level, and is located just north of the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, and Little San Bernardino Mountains.
Pappy & Harriet's Pioneertown Palace is a honky-tonk, barbecue restaurant and music venue near Joshua Tree National Park in Pioneertown, California. Accessible from California State Route 62, the restaurant lies four miles northeast of Yucca Valley.
The Hi-Desert Star is a newspaper published and distributed in Yucca Valley, Morongo Valley, and Pioneertown, located within the southern Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California.
High Desert is an American comedy television series created and written by Nancy Fichman, Katie Ford and Jennifer Hoppe-House that premiered on Apple TV+ on May 17, 2023. In July 2023, the series was cancelled after one season.
Pioneertown Mountains Preserve is a nature preserve owned and managed by The Wildlands Conservancy, a nonprofit land conservancy. Consisting of 25,500 acres (103 km2) of land in San Bernardino County, California, the preserve features geologically interesting mountain ranges and riparian zones. It is located in the Mojave Desert in the eastern San Bernardino Mountains. More preserves can be found in the list of preserves.
The Sawtooths is a small mountain range in southern San Bernardino County, California.