Eaves Movie Ranch

Nearly 30 years ago J. W. Eaves built a Western town were you can climb the plank steps to the boardwalk flanking the saloon, bank and mercantiles of the old west period. Making your way down the old pine walkway and peeping into a storefront, you get unreal sense that this town is real in the sense of lived in, peopled with sooty blacksmiths and cautious bankers, nosy shopkeepers and worldly bartenders. The occasional glimpse of a false front brings visitors back to reality—it is really just a movie set.

Eaves has been working with the film industry for approximately 40 years, including long periods of sluggish film activity. In 1957, he bought a sprawling ranch south of Santa Fe and soon thereafter had his first taste of Hollywood when they used his distinctive ranch house as a location for the short-lived television series Empire in 1962.

Several years later, Eaves was working at the windmill pond near his home when a man walked up. He was a producer from Columbia Pictures who asked about using the ranch for a film and wanted to lease it for a year.

This deal set the stage for the first major production at the Eaves Ranch, Where Angels Go . . . Trouble Follows, a film that brought Rosalind Russell and Robert Taylor to New Mexico. The following year, 1969, Gene Kelly approached Eaves about the possibility of building a Western town set for the movie he was to direct, The Cheyenne Social Club. They agreed to split the costs, with Kelly (from National General Pictures) paying half to build the town. It took five months to build, including the construction of power lines and roads. The film is, to this day, a standout among Eaves' many recollections, largely due to its stars Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda, along with director Kelly.

In 1970, John Wayne starred in Chisum the year following. Many films followed, such as Billy Jack, The Culpepper Cattle Company, Butch & Sundance: The Early Days, Gunfighters of the West, Red Sky at Morning, Wyatt Earp and more.