Southern California is known for Movies and Television. There are plenty of big studios in the heart of Hollywood. While these studios are great for the interior portions of a movie the great outdoors is sometimes the backdrop for many movies. This is where the Movie Ranches of yesteryear came in.
Westerns once dominated the motion picture landscape. These westerns needed a lot of outdoor shooting and western town sets. Movie Ranches provided the perfect setting for these needs.
Corriganville was a fully functioning movie ranch for years, later becoming a tourist attraction somewhat like a small scale Universal Studios.
Owned by stuntman Crash Corrigan the ranch was in operation until 1965 when it was sold to Bob Hope. There were a handful of movies filmed there after that but fires in 1970 and 1979 destroyed the ranch. The buildings are long gone but there is still some evidence of the history of this site which is now part of the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District.
Here are the gates of Corriganvile.
A shot from the hill above Silvertown back in the day.
Below are a couple of shots from the hill above the former location of Silvertown
Silvertown then…….
And Now.
This rock formation used to have a facade built on to it to create a Hideout Cave.
This was known as Stunt Rock. A diving platform above an artificial lake.
The famous Gorilla Rock. I’m sure you can guess where it got it’s name.
For more information please visit http://www.corriganville.net/
If you would like to explore this site yourself it is open to the public.