Gammons Gulch

It's a name that evokes images of cowboys, which it should. It's a cowboy movie set in Cochise County, in the San Pedro valley north of Benson. We wondered whether Gammons Gulch could have been the Xanadu of the Southwest movie locations, the El Dorado where Dirty Little Billy was filmed in 1971, with appearances (if precious little acting) by Michael J. Pollard, but starring our dramatic and theatrical hero and movie producer, Richard Evans.

You need a reservation to visit the site, which we had. I wasn't expecting much at all, but it was something to do on a Sunday morning. The drive is nice. Perhaps because of the low bar I had set, but most likely because of the place itself and its curator, the tour turned out to be a fascinating immersion into Americana of the Wild West cowboy variety.

The force behind Gammons Gulch is Jay Gammons. The world is always a better place because of eccentrics, and Jay is a good natured, talkative eccentric who has managed to construct enough buildings (salvaging material from century-old houses in Benson slated for demolition) and collected enough memorabilia to recreate and furnish a small Western town. 

Inside the blacksmith's shop.

We were one of two automobiles that turned up for that day's tour. Jay welcomed us wearing overalls and joking about looking like Junior Samples. (Look up Hee Haw.) Jay was a joke a minute. They came so fast, and he used them so often, it didn't take long for him to repeat himself unwittingly. He had the script down.

Even ad-libbing. For example, there were some young kids setting up staging for a shoot the following day. "Young kids" means minimum wage college grads, I expect. Jay explained they were making a movie called Aurora, then joked that it sounded like it was about toilet paper. It was a fresh joke for Jay, so he used it three times in the hour or more as we listened to him explain the buildings, memorabilia, Hollywood actors and producers, his going-to-town (that's Benson) car, and his former wife.

Wall of fame inside the saloon.

Jay complained about Hollywood types. I suppose after over twenty movies, plus numerous music videos and television programs, and even small roles with big stars, Jay has a basis from which to complain. It seems the Hollywood types like his sets and furnishings and offer to give him rolling credit in exchange for their use. Jay expects to be paid.

(Watching the recent Tom Cruise-vehicle, Mission Impossible, and gazing at minutes and minutes of rolling credits at the end, I wondered how many got paid or just got the small font credit. I also wondered whether the young folk setting up for Aurora were getting paid.)

Square pole; take down the cross and
church converts to school-house.

Jay liberally commented on the character (or lack of it) of various well known stars. John Wayne, Andy Griffith and Tom Selleck are good folk, he assured us, as he pointed to photos taken during the glory days. If you want to know more, take the tour.

The stuff that Jay has collected over the years is a true museum collection. He doesn't believe in fake replicas and he scorns the amusement park that Tombstone has become. He has Edison light bulbs about a century old and worth over a hundred dollars a piece. I couldn't believe that he turned them on for the tour! Old radios and typewriters, giant horseshoes, blacksmithing and mining equipment, a rare square telegraph line pole, vintage cars, and enough vintage bottles and cans to fill a general store.

What serves as a hotel facade is also the residence of Jay
and his wife Joanne.

He joked about the old safe that he had acquired for the "bank". It's a monster that weighs several thousand pounds. One Hollywood type wanted to move the safe to a different part of the room, to make the room more photogenic. Sure, encouraged Jay. When a burly crew of three or four couldn't budge it, the Hollywood type let it be and Jay chuckled.

He not only knows a little banjo,
he also played the old piano in the saloon.

People gave him the stuff, like the authentic clapboards and siding with which he constructed his buildings. He told us about tearing out old floorboards somewhere in northern Arizona and finding a nest of "buzz worms" underneath. That's what he calls rattlers — buzz worms. Sadly, being an old school cowboy aficionado and routinely packing a pistol, he shot them.

The good news is that our tour was way more interesting than any of us had expected. The letdown was that Little Dirty Billy wasn't shot at Gammons Gulch but at another nearby set run by the "Old Tucson" folk and known as Mescal. Trouble is, Mescal is so run down that the place is closed and people can't visit.

Sorry, Richard, our pilgrimage to the scene of your acting tour de force remains unrequited.