The Superstition Mountain Museum is a place to discover the West.
It's now home to the Elvis Memorial Chapel, a 15-acre property that continues to grow, celebrating rich Western movie-making history. It sits four miles away from where the Apacheland Movie Ranch was destroyed by two fires.
Apacheland Movie Ranch opened in 1960 and back then, it was an 1,800-acre movie set. Then, a fire in May of 1969 destroyed most of the buildings.
The sets were rebuilt and filming resumed, but on Valentine's day of 2004, a raging consumed the property again, closing the ranch for good. Only two buildings survived — the Apacheland Movie Barn and the Elvis Memorial Chapel.
ABC15 talked with Kathleen Putek, a volunteer on the property who oversees venue rentals, who says, "Elvis was here. He was here quite frequently...He was here filming the movie Charro — it was his only non-singing role. And it was his favorite role because he wanted to be more than just a sex symbol. It was a box office flop, unfortunately. But the chapel played a prominent feature in that movie."
That was before it was moved to the Superstition Mountain Museum. Now, weddings and other events fit for a king happen here.
"We have a statue of Elvis on the altar. And people can choose to keep him there or take him away. We can store him in the back. There are western posters on the wall featuring the movies that were filmed in Apacheland."
The Apacheland Movie Barn is also loaded with Arizona movie-making history — and a 20-foot tall stamp mill, invented in the 19th century and used to help miners crush gold-bearing rock.
"We have the best-preserved stamp mill, probably in North America that's totally original. All the parts are original. And it's operated more often than any other mill in North America that we know of," volunteer David Raring said.
The Cossak Stamp Mill operates from November to April, generally on Thursdays and weekends.
For more information, check out The Superstition Mountain Historical Society online.
