Filmed at Gene Autry's Melody Ranch in Placerita Canyon, the Robert L. Jacks picture Man From Del Rio (United
Artists, 1956) was directed by Harry Horner and starred Anthony Quinn in the title role. Katy Jurado (pictured)
played the female lead. A prominent actress in Mexico, Jurado continued to appear in Spanish-language soap operas in the 1990s.
The Melody Ranch story begins in 1915, when Ernie Hickson rode into California and went to work for pioneer film maker Trem Carr. Hickson was a collector of all things Western, including buildings, which he imported from Nevada. In 1930 he created an entire Western town at Carr's Rancho Placeritos, just east of the modern-day Placerita Canyon Road exit off of State Route 14.
Carr was soon forced to sell the Placeritos. Hickson relocated his town to the intersection of Oak Creek and Placerita Canyon Road, west of the current highway, and leased it to Carr's new employer, Monogram Pictures.
Known as the Monogram Ranch during the 1930s and '40s, the town hosted its share of climactic Hollywood moments — from its transformation into the rowdy hamlet of Lordsburg for the tense finale of the 1939 John Wayne classic Stagecoach, to the dusty Western street where High Noon's immortal face-down played itself out. Just about every old celluloid cowboy to ride across the silver screen ambled through this Monogram set at one time or another — men like Harry Carey, Tom Tyler, Johnny Mack Brown, Bob Steele and the legendary Singing Cowboy himself, Gene Autry.
Ernie Hickson died on January 22, 1952. Later that year, Autry purchased his old stomping grounds, which he renamed "Melody Ranch," and moved into a farm house which still stands on the property. Contrary to what one might assume, Autry's weekly television series in the 1950s was not filmed at Melody Ranch, but hundreds of other feature films and television programs were, including Gunsmoke and Wyatt Earp.
The magic was not to last. On August 28, 1962, a violent firestorm swept through Placerita Canyon and engulfed most of the movie town's original Western structures. Elvis Presley, on location, helped battle the flames, but to little avail.
"What I lost could not be replaced or even measured," Gene Autry said in 1995. "I had always planned to erect a Western museum there, but priceless Indian relics and a collection of rare guns, including a set used by Billy the Kid, went up in smoke. Thank God, the ranch hands and all fourteen of our horses were uninjured."
In the decades after the fire, Autry and his business manager — wife Jackie — sold off portions of the 110-acre ranch. The final ten acres, where the buildings had stood, went on the market in November, 1990. Brothers Renaud and Andre Veluzat, longtime Newhall residents and film industry executives, quickly purchased the parcel and restored the Western movie ranch to its former glory in 1991.
Today, modern superstars like Bruce Willis, Jeff Bridges and Randy Travis are creating new legends at the Melody Ranch Motion Picture Studio as they mesmerize new movie-goers and television audiences with the timeless drama of the American West.
Information provided by Gene Autry, Renaud Veluzat,and "Santa
Clarita: Valley of the Golden Dream" by Jerry Reynolds (1990). For more about Melody Ranch, read
"Memories of the Place I Called 'Melody Ranch'" by Gene Autry.
