A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s. They were instrumental in opening up the various emigrant trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains traveling over roads explored and in many cases, physically improved by the mountain men and the big fur companies, originally to serve the mule train-based inland fur trade.
The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) long route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers traveled from 1846–47. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
Joel Albert McCrea was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he became best known.
The Death Valley '49ers were a group of pioneers from the Eastern United States that endured a long and difficult journey during the late 1840s California Gold Rush to prospect in the Sutter's Fort area of the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada in California. Their route from Utah went through the Great Basin Desert in Nevada, and Death Valley and the Mojave Desert in Southern California, in attempting to reach the Gold Country.
Ramrod is a 1947 American Western film directed by Andre de Toth and starring Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Preston Foster and Don DeFore. This cowboy drama from Hungarian director de Toth was the first of several films based on the stories of Western author Luke Short. De Toth's first Western is often compared to films noir released around the same time. Leading lady Veronica Lake was then married to director de Toth. The supporting cast features Donald Crisp, Charles Ruggles, Lloyd Bridges and Ray Teal.
Joel Dee "Jody" McCrea was an American actor. He was the son of actors Joel McCrea and Frances Dee.
I Died a Thousand Times is a 1955 American CinemaScope Warnercolor film noir directed by Stuart Heisler. The drama features Jack Palance as paroled bank robber Roy Earle, with Shelley Winters, Lee Marvin, Earl Holliman, Perry Lopez, Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez, and Lon Chaney Jr.
The Salt Creek Canyon massacre occurred on June 4, 1858, when four Danish immigrants were ambushed and killed by unidentified Indians in Salt Creek Canyon, a winding canyon of Salt Creek east of present-day Nephi, in Juab County, Utah.
Wagon Master is a 1950 American Western film produced and directed by John Ford and starring Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Joanne Dru, and Ward Bond. The story follows a Mormon pioneer wagon train across treacherous desert to the San Juan River in Utah. The film inspired the US television series Wagon Train (1957–1965), which starred Bond until his death in 1960. The film was a personal favorite of Ford himself, who told Peter Bogdanovich in 1967 that "Along with The Fugitive and The Sun Shines Bright, Wagon Master came closest to being what I wanted to achieve." While the critical and audience response to Wagon Master was lukewarm on its release, over the years numerous critics have come to view it as one of Ford's masterpieces.
Westward the Women is a 1951 American western film directed by William A. Wellman and starring Robert Taylor, Denise Darcel and John McIntire.
Gregg Barton was an American actor, who played various roles in feature films and television series.
The 1935 NCAA Track and Field Championships was the 14th NCAA track and field championship. The event was held at Edwards Stadium in Berkeley, California in June 1935. The University of Southern California won the team championship with 74+1⁄5 points.
Scene of the Crime is a 1949 American film noir directed by Roy Rowland, starring Van Johnson, and featuring Gloria DeHaven, Arlene Dahl, and Tom Drake. The film's screenplay, by Charles Schnee, is based on a non-fiction article by John Bartlow Martin, "Smashing the Bookie Gang Marauders". It was the only property sold by Martin to be made into a film. Scene of the Crime was producer Harry Rapf's last film of his thirty-plus year career; he died of a heart attack a week after principal photography for the film began.
The First Texan is a 1956 American CinemaScope and Technicolor western film directed by Byron Haskin and starring Joel McCrea, Felicia Farr and Jeff Morrow. Produced by Walter Mirisch, it was shot in CinemaScope and distributed by Allied Artists. It is set during the Texas Revolution of the 1830s.
Six Black Horses is a 1962 American Western film directed by Harry Keller and starring Audie Murphy, Dan Duryea and Joan O'Brien.
Ted Mapes was an American character actor, who was also a prolific stuntman and body double. Born on November 25, 1901, in St. Edward, Nebraska, he moved to Los Angeles in his mid-20s, and entered the film industry in 1929, first as a grip, and then as a stuntman and actor. He doubled for many famous actors, including Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper. His film and television career spanned forty years, during which time he appeared in hundreds of films and television shows, either as an actor, stuntman or body double. After his career in front of the camera ended in 1969, Mapes became an advocate for animal safety in films, working as an observer on sets for the American Humane Association.
Mormon Road, also known to the 49ers as the Southern Route, of the California Trail in the Western United States, was a seasonal wagon road pioneered by a Mormon party from Salt Lake City, Utah led by Jefferson Hunt, that followed the route of Spanish explorers and the Old Spanish Trail across southwestern Utah, northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada and the Mojave Desert of California to Los Angeles in 1847. From 1855, it became a military and commercial wagon route between California and Utah, called the Los Angeles – Salt Lake Road. In later decades this route was variously called the "Old Mormon Road", the "Old Southern Road", or the "Immigrant Road" in California. In Utah, Arizona and Nevada it was known as the "California Road".
A Loss of Innocence is a 1996 American romantic drama television film that first aired on September 29, 1996, on the ABC television network. It is based on the novel On This Star by Virginia Sorensen.
Chester William Hannan was an American actor and rodeo performer. He was known for starring as Yucca Bill Thompson in the 1937 film Stars Over Arizona.
Robert George Burton was an American film and television actor.
