Iverson Movie Ranch, was one of Hollywood’s busiest outdoor filming locations during the 20th century.
A rugged stretch of sandstone formations tucked inside Chatsworth, California once served as one of Hollywood’s busiest outdoor backlots, helping shape the look of Western films and television for decades.
Today, the remaining 23-acre site known as Garden of the Gods preserves what is left of the historic Iverson Movie Ranch, where more than 2,000 movies filmed between 1912 and the late 1960s, according to author and historian Jerry England.
“We are on what remains of the Iverson Movie Ranch location,” England said.
From the sky, the sandstone formations rise above nearby development, while dusty hiking trails wind through the protected recreation area in Chatsworth.
“In movies, it portrayed everything from the South Pacific to Asia to alien planetscapes, the Rockies, the Sierras, you name it,” England said.
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England, who wrote a book about the ranch, said he became fascinated with the site after visiting it in the late 1990s.
“We came up here and I just got so interested, I started studying it back in the late ’90s, and by 2008, I decided it was time to write a book,” he said.
Even in his 80s, England still hikes the rocky trails to revisit some of the ranch’s best-known filming locations.
“Between about 1912 and the late 1960s, over 2000 movies were shot here,” England said.
Films and television shows shot at the ranch included Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath and “The Cisco Kid.”
“It’s the rocks. It’s all about the rocks. It always has been about the rocks,” England said.
The weathered sandstone formations appeared in Westerns including “The Lone Ranger” and earlier productions such as the 1923 Buster Keaton comedy Three Ages.
“And right up there where it kind of flattens out on top is Buster Keaton’s bathtub,” England said.
The Iverson Ranch began as a homestead in the 1880s before the silent film industry discovered the landscape. England said the Iverson family soon realized they could make more money renting the property to film productions.
“They had a whole scheme which I can’t regurgitate for you, but it was like a dollar a car, a dollar a horse, you know, $3 for every camera,” England said.
Its proximity to Los Angeles also helped attract major productions and actors.
“John Wayne in The Fighting Seabees came marching down through here. Ronald Reagan had a big shoot out in Cattle Queen of Montana in this area. Wee Willie Winkie with Shirley Temple was shot here. That was a John Ford classic,” England said.
The Iverson family also rented space, built props and provided livestock for productions, but by the late 1960s film production began moving overseas and freeway construction near the ranch created challenges for filming.
“And when the freeway went through, I mean, today you can mute sound and you can muffle things nowadays, but they couldn’t do it back then,” England said.
Today, Garden of the Gods remains a protected hiking area where traces of Hollywood history still stand among the sandstone formations.
“Some of these rocks are as famous as the cowboys,” England said.
ANOTHER ROCKY ADVENTURE ON THE BACKROADS: Here’s how gigantic, round rocks ended up on the Mendocino Coast at a place called ‘Bowling Ball Beach.’
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