Pioneertown

Eighteen minutes up the road from Stargaze, past the last of the houses, sits a working Old West town that started life as a movie set. Pioneertown is one of the strangest and most likeable places in the high desert — half film history, half honky-tonk, and entirely worth an afternoon.

A town built to be filmed

Pioneertown was founded in 1946 by a group of Hollywood investors — Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Bud Abbott among them — who wanted an 1880s frontier set that actors could also live in. Dozens of Westerns and TV episodes were shot along its main street. The trick was that the false fronts were real buildings: a bank that was also a home, a saloon that poured real drinks. Today Mane Street is still lined with those weathered facades, and people still live and work behind them.

What to do

• Walk Mane Street — it takes twenty minutes and it's free. Golden hour is the time; the low sun on the old wood is the whole point.
• Pappy & Harriet's — the barbecue-and-live-music roadhouse that put Pioneertown back on the map. It deserves its own evening; we've written about it in the Journal.
• Catch a gunfight — on select weekends a volunteer troupe stages Old West shootout skits in the street. Check ahead, since the schedule is seasonal.
• Poke into the shops — a handful of small stores and saloons come and go along the street; part of the fun is seeing what's open.

Where the film crews slept

If you're only here for the day you don't need a room — you've got the house. But the Pioneertown Motel, once used to lodge film crews, is a beloved spot worth a look for the history even if you're not checking in.

Getting there

From Yucca Valley, Pioneertown Road climbs north out of town into the hills. It's a pretty, winding eighteen-minute drive that's genuinely fun at dusk, with Joshua trees crowding the shoulders. The drive back after dark, under a full sky of stars, is half the reason to go — save the fire pit for a nightcap when you get home.