Where the Old Southwest Lives On

BY: James Boyer

STRAIGHT SHOOTIN' SOLD HERE

TEXT BY JAMES BOYER PHOTOGRAPHS BY EDWARD MCCAIN Gunfighter Ed McKechnie can draw and fire his revolver in 0.28 seconds. Give him another halfsecond and he'll shoot twice more, cocking the hammer of his Colt .45 once against his thigh, and then fanning it with his left hand.

McKechnie may be the fastest gun in the Sonoran Desert he clocked the best time in a recent fast-draw contest but he figures the skill wouldn't have done him much good a hundred or so years ago.

"If I were Billy the Kid," he says, a felt cowboy hat shading his scruffy but handsome face, "I wouldn't challenge you to a gunfight. I'd sneak up from behind and shoot you in the back."

But out at Old Tucson Studios, where for 50 years actors such as John Wayne, William Holden, and Clint Eastwood have spun the myth of the Old West, reality follows the script. And that means straight shootin', chivalry, the quick justice of the gallows.

"We represent the film version of the Old West, which is often very close to authentic, and sometimes nowhere near it," says Daniel Aylward, Old Tucson's general manager.

Be that as it may, this 160-acre motion-picture set and theme park has helped to create a vision of the Old West that is embraced around the world.

More than 200 films, television series episodes, and commercials have been shot at Old Tucson, including movie classics such as Rio Bravo and McClintock, and the television shows "Bonanza," "High Chaparral," "Gunsmoke," and the more recent "Young Riders."

Gunfights, bank robberies, Western musical revues, train and wagon rides all these and more are part of the daily entertainment at this outpost of nostalgic Americana.

But perhaps one of Old Tucson's most alluring aspects is simply the ambience of the set itself. Located 12 miles west of the city for which it is named, Old Tucson sits among saguaro and cholla cacti at the foot of the rugged Tucson Mountains. To the north and west stretches Avra Valley, a vast expanse of flat desert.

alluring aspects is simply the ambience of the set itself. Located 12 miles west of the city for which it is named, Old Tucson sits among saguaro and cholla cacti at the foot of the rugged Tucson Mountains. To the north and west stretches Avra Valley, a vast expanse of flat desert.

The park's only neighbors for miles are the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Saguaro National Monument, each a testament to the unique and complex beauty of the surrounding country.

Open from 9:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. every day, the set is particularly striking in the late afternoon, when long shadows fall on the dirt streets and brilliant sunsets spill hues of pink and orange across the sky. Add to this the rich history of each adobe and clapboard building in the set many have appeared, in a variety of forms, in dozens of films and you get an atmosphere that lends itself to lingering.

Lining Front Street, the main drag of the studio, are all the businesses a small Western town could ask for: a bank, hotel, and saloon among them. Posted on each one is a legend of the structure's film history.

Some of the buildings now contain retail stores (shopping potentials abound here: there are a dozen Western specialty shops along Front Street); others are furnished authentically. The doctor's office and apothecary, for example, contain such relics as a "fever box," used to raise one's body temperature, and an electrified copper chair dubbed, appropriately, "the Shocker."

Countless performers have walked Front Street over the years, and visitors often get a chance to see motionpicture making in process. Earlier this year, several hundred watched Emilio Estevez move a herd of cattle up the street during the filming of Young Guns II. Lou Diamond Phillips, Christian Slater, and Keifer Sutherland also were involved in the filming. Old Tucson's managementcoordinates filming projects so they occur with regularly scheduled activities, maximizing visitors' chances of seeing the personalities in action.

"Some of the actors are really nice to people and will sign autographs," says Public Relations Manager Jonelle Pintello. "But a lot won't." That's show business.

Kansas Street, which runs perpendicular to Front Street, also has appeared in dozens of motion pictures and television shows. Lined with clapboard buildings, it suggests an early 20th-century town in Midwestern America. Both "Little House on the Prairie" and "Bonanza" were shot here, and, in 1983, CBS brought in truckloads of pine trees to make the set look like Deadwood, South Dakota, for the television movie "Calamity Jane."

Also on Kansas Street is the facade of the Royal Oak Saloon. The interior of the saloon, however, is inside the studio's 13,000-square-foot sound stage, just south of Kansas Street.

During the special-effects show, visitors to the saloon may find themselves in a rainstorm, under siege by hostile Indians, or they may hear horses galloping by as bullets and arrows whiz through the barroom, breaking glasses and sticking into the walls. The stage once hosted a campfire scene complete with a running stream, and, on another occasion, a herd of cattle trundled through the building.

Glass cases hold such memorabilia as Michael Landon's hat from "Little House on the Prairie," Frank Sinatra's long johns from Dirty Dingus Magee, and John Wayne's jeans from Rio Lobo.

At the north end of Front Street sits the Reno, a famous locomotive with a long history in both the real Old West and the motion-picture version. Fabricated by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia in 1872, the Reno was acquired by Old Tucson in 1970. With its wagon-top boiler and polished brass fittings, it cuts a striking figure against the backdrop of the Tucson Mountains.

The train hauled some $400 million worth of silver and gold during the hey-day of the Comstock Lode, helping to make the Virginia & Truckee Railroad the richest short line in the world. The Reno also carried its share of notable passengers, including Baron Rothschild, P. T. Barnum, and Presidents U.S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt.

When the Comstock played out, the Reno was sold to a motion-picture studio, switching from silver hauling to the silver screen. It has since appeared in more than 50 films, including Annie Get Your Gun, How the West was Won, and, most recently, in a Duracell Battery commercial filmed at Old Tucson.

(RIGHT) Gutsy stuntman Jonathan Harlock demonstrates an elaborate "fall" from the tower of Old Tucson's mission church onto a cushion of foam-rubber cubes.

Across the street from the Reno you'll find the Simmons Gun Museum, which opened in 1984 and exhibits more than 1,000 weapons collected by Donald Simmons who lives in Patagonia, Arizona. The scope of the collection goes far beyond the West, however, encompassing a flintlock musket used in the American Revolution; a Chinese AK-47; a Walther PPK, the pistol used by Agent 007 in James Bond motion pictures; and an 1880s four-barrel English Lancaster, called the "Howdah Pistol" by tiger hunters in India.

For younger visitors, who are unfamiliar with such luminaries as Glenn Ford and Kirk Douglas, who remember Ronald Reagan only as a President, and who have little tolerance for nostalgic strolls, there is plenty of action at Old Tucson.

Along with the four daily shoot-outs in which stuntmen tumble from rooftops and punch it out in the dust of the Mexican Plaza, Silverlake Park offers a barrage of entertainment. In addition to a video arcade, shooting gallery, petting zoo, and carousel, it features the Iron Door Mine Ride, complete with cackling skeletons, strobe lights, and stashes of gold and silver.

Youngsters and their parents can drive a 1910 American Mercer or take the narrated C. P. Huntington train tour, which travels the perimeter of the set and is an excellent means of learning the studio's layout.

Originally built for the 1940 epic Arizona, Old Tucson has evolved dramatically over the decades. The originalbuildings, for example, were made from hand-formed adobe bricks (Columbia Pictures commissioned Papago Indians skilled in this craft), so that the set would resemble Tucson as it appeared in the 1870s.

Each new film brought changes. The soundstage and a ranch were added when Old Tucson became the home of television's "High Chaparral" in the '60s, and These changes are permanent, though Old Tucson management has the option to ask production companies to restore buildings to their original appearance. Time moves forward, backward, and even sideways as the set and Western legend grows larger.

The flavor of Old Tucson may be Western, but the crowd it draws is international. Nearly 25 percent of the set's visitors come from foreign countries, a figure roughly equal to the number who come from Arizona. The rest are from through-

WHEN YOU GO

Getting there: From Tucson, travel west on either Speedway Boulevard or Ajo Way and follow signs (distance is approximately 12 miles either route). Speedway is the more scenic, but winds through a narrow pass not recommended for RVs or trailers. Hours and admission: Old Tucson is open daily from 9:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. Adults, $9.95 ($5.95 after 5:00 P.M.). Children 4-11, $5.95 ($5.20 after 5:00 P.M.). Children under age four, free. For more information: write Old Tucson Studios, 201 S. Kinney Road, Tucson, AZ 85746; or telephone (602) 883-6457.

Out the U.S. Currently the Western genre is riding a wave of popularity unparalleled since the late '60s when "Bonanza," "Death Valley Days," and "High Chaparral" ruled the airways. Old Tucson is part motion-picture set, part history lesson, and part theme park. As we enter the 1990s, producers and directors are taking a new look at the Old West. Filming increased threefold between 1988 and 1989 at Old Tucson and enjoyed an additional 90 percent increase in the first half of 1990. As Old Tucson's Jonelle Pintello says, "[We are] supported by gate receipts, but the films are the soul of the place. You can't have one without the other."

Old Tucson is optimistic about the future of the past.

Travel Guide: For detailed information about the great variety of places to travel in Arizona, we recommend the guidebooks Travel Arizona and Travel Arizona: The Back Roads. Both will direct you to exciting destinations and out-ofthe-way attractions. For information on these and other travel publications, or to place an order, telephone 1 (800) 5435432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

TRAVEL WITH THE FRIENDS OF ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Discover the wonders of Arizona and learn photography from the best. Whether you are a casual point-and-shoot photographer, a serious amateur, or just someone who wants to experience Arizona in a unique way, the Friends of Arizona Highways auxiliary has a trip for you. Their excursions vary from one-day Shutterbug Safaris and twoto six-day Photo Tours, led by our photographers and technical representatives from Kodak, Fuji, AGFA, and Tamron, to Scenic Tours of the state's most spectacular locales, guided by top photographer Ray Manley. Here is a partial schedule of entertaining and informative trips you can enjoy early next year. January 30-February 2, 1992: Join Gordon and Theresa Whelpley on a trip to Canyon de Chelly, where ancient Indian dwellings cling to soaring cliffs of awesome beauty, and Monument Valley with its sculpted pinnacles, towering buttes, and endless sand dunes. February 6-9, 1992: Visit the South Rim of the Grand Canyon with Gary Ladd and experience the superb grandeur of the imcomparable chasm, its drama, color, and ever-changing light.

Photo Tours

March 12-15, 1992: Jerry Sieve will lead a trek to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where the many-armed organ pipe cactus coexists with desert plants found only here and in some parts of Mexico. A bonus is the possibility of a profusion of spring wildflowers. April 21-26, 1992: Jerry and Lois Jacka will lead a trip to Lake Powell, where a houseboat will take participants on a magical journey past majestic sandstone cliffs and through narrow side canyons.

Scenic Tours

Twoto five-day tours, led by premier photographer Ray Manley, explore the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly; and there are opportunities to raft the Colorado River and tour Havasupai Canyon by helicopter. For information on Photo Tours (limited to 20 persons) and Scenic Tours, telephone the Friends of Arizona Highways Travel Desk (602) 271-5904.