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Apacheland/Heritage Days event to revel in history, music, the old west

Posted 12/10/19

A celebration of the cowboy culture, Apacheland Movie Ranch and Arizona’s Western heritage will be the theme of this year’s two-day Apacheland/Heritage Days event, which the Superstition Mountain Museum is hosting Jan. 11-12, 2020.

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Apacheland/Heritage Days event to revel in history, music, the old west

Posted

A celebration of the cowboy culture, Apacheland Movie Ranch and Arizona’s Western heritage will be the theme of this year’s two-day Apacheland/Heritage Days event, which the Superstition Mountain Museum is hosting Jan. 11-12, 2020.

Admission to this family-friendly event is $5 per person with kids 10 and under admitted free, according to a press release.

A highlight of the event will be “A Cowboy Reunion” in the Apacheland Barn bringing together many of the folks involved in the making of movies and television series at Apacheland, including actor Michael Dante, storyteller Hank Sheffer, Don Collier, Darby Hinton and Ron Nix among others.

This reunion is being dedicated to Charlie LeSueur, Arizona’s Western movie historian, who recently died.

Apacheland Movie Ranch opened in 1960 with a single row of three-sided roofless small buildings on a site just off Highway 60 on Kings Ranch Road in what is known today as Gold Canyon.

By the end of 1960, developers of Superstition Mountain Enterprises had constructed both sides of its Old West main street and turned the site into a full movie set.

Apacheland never reached its lofty goal of becoming “the Capital” of Western filming sites, but it did become a Western movie Mecca hosting the shooting of more than 17 television series, 29 full-length feature films and hundreds of commercials during its history.

Some of the commercials were made as recently as a few weeks before the fire on Valentine’s Day 2004, which destroyed Apacheland Movie Ranch.

Also featured at the museum celebration will be the Buffalo Soldiers, Arizona Chapter, who will be raising and retiring the flag each day, as well as hosting an exhibit and lectures regarding the history of the Buffalo Soldiers, a chapter in U.S. military history, a release states.

Other guests include champion yodeler Paula Williamson, rope trick artist Cowboy Steve, Lee Anderson and his horse, Concho, the Superstition Mountain Renegades --- who will be staging gunfights --- and local musicians.

Musicians will include the Housers, playing cowboy tunes of yesteryear and today. The Big Trains will be running, and there will be Ore Stamp Mill demos on 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Jan. 11.

Food will be available on the grounds. Numerous vendors will comprise a unique market place of all things Western and cowboy.

An added special Jan. 11 evening event this year is a Barbecue Feed and Concert beginning at 4:30 p.m. The roast pig barbecue, put on by Waldo’s Barbecue, features carved pork barbecue, cowboy beans, and green chile brisket mac n’ cheese, plus a beverage.

Tickets, priced at $35 per person for both the dinner and the concert, are available online, at the museum Gift Shop or at the event.

The 5:30 p.m. concert will feature well-known groups The Amazing McNasty Brothers, who sing country and bluegrass music combined with a large dose of comedy, and Pat Roberts and the Heymakers, a rockabilly group.

Those wishing to attend the concert only may purchase tickets for $10 and will be admitted beginning at 5 p.m.

The Superstition Mountain Museum, a non-profit facility organized and run by the Superstition Mountain Historical Society, is at 4087 N. Apache Trail in Apache Junction