Even though Pioneertown counts fewer than 500 residents, this quaint Western-themed community hangs on with the tenacity of a cactus thorn buried deep, but instead of a sharp pain, visitors are left with fond memories of desert beauty where quirky is an everyday thing.
First established in the late 1940s as a convenient locale for Hollywood to film Westerns, Pioneertown is about 125 miles east of Los Angeles, a few miles west of Joshua Tree National Park and about 40 miles north of Palm Springs. Cowboy movie and television legend Roy Rogers helped found the town and it was named after a band he was in, “Sons of the Pioneers.”