Tucson Re-Creates the Old West, With Extras

TUCSON, Ariz. —  Some mighty nasty villains have menaced the dusty streets of Old Tucson, but there always seemed to be a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood to run them out of town or put them in Boot Hill.

No one in a white hat, however, rode in and saved this Old West movie location and theme park from a real-life culprit: an arsonist who destroyed nearly half of Old Tucson in 1995 and put it out of business for 18 months.

Now, after a $13-million renovation, Old Tucson is working hard to lure back tourists and to bring in the next “Rio Bravo,” “Gunfight at the OK Corral” or “The Three Amigos,” a major motion picture that can bring in major money.

“Movies are two to three years in the making,” general manager Tom Moulton said. “And I think we’re still one year away from the big boom.”

The old Old Tucson was the backdrop for about 300 movies and TV shows since 1939. The new one has an added focus: historic storytelling and concerts featuring such performers as the group Sha Na Na and rocker Eddie Money.

Sixteen buildings have gone up, including the Grand Palace Hotel and Saloon, a 450-seat opera house. The make-over includes ponds, a waterfall and other water attractions and shaded areas for visitors to sit and picnic.

Visitors can look at a new exhibit of harnesses once owned by Wayne, replacing others lost in the fire, and Frank Sinatra’s long underwear from “Dirty Dingus Magee.” They also can watch stagecoaches rolling along Main Street and take in staged gunfights.

On a recent day, however, visitor Lee Piepenbrink found that the rejuvenated park has less of an 1880s feel than the original.

“I think they’ve done a good job of generally rebuilding some of the portions of Old Tucson, but to me it seems an awful lot different from what it was before the fire, and I think the spirit is not quite the same here,” said Piepenbrink of Maple Grove, Minn., a Tucson native who has visited the park about 20 times.

With paying customers back now for 18 months, it’s not exactly high noon for Old Tucson. But the tourist count last year was 390,000, compared with the 459,000 the park drew in 1994.

No big-budget movies have been booked, though location scouts are regular visitors. The best Old Tucson has done lately is a real estate company’s industrial video and some commercials, said Moulton, the park’s general manager.

“Everything is off this year,” said Linda Peterson Warren, director of the Arizona Film Commission. More movie productions are staying in Los Angeles or going to New York for specifically scripted films, she said.

“We’ve not had a lot of calls for westerns,” said Sheri Davis, director of the Inland Empire Film Commission for California’s San Bernardino and Riverside counties, which has rival locations often used by filmmakers.

Old Tucson was built for William Holden’s 1939 movie “Arizona” and grew over the years as other movie sets were added. It opened to the public in 1960.

Among the fixtures lost in the fire, which remains unsolved, was a sound stage; it won’t be replaced.

Other things can’t be replaced, including nearly all of Old Tucson’s 10,000-square-foot wardrobe and props collection, ranging from Wayne’s pants to Michael Landon’s belongings from TV’s “Little House on the Prairie.”