For the 1948 Fort Apache, during the Summer of 1947, 20th Century-Fox built the basis of a western fort on a plateau above the town.. By the early 1950's, the fort walls were added. When a Foreign Legion type of movie was filmed there (name not known), the western side of the fort set was converted into the "concrete" style of walls used in the African pictures. This wall also included its own gateway. The remnants of the wall can be seen in the photo to the left (the white wall on the right bottom side of the fort set). This fort was the main set for the television series The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin. The roadway along the western side of the fort next to the white walls was the entrance way from the parking lot to the Silvertown set (left to right in the photo). The roadway to the north of the fort as well as the roadway that exited the fort from the secondary gateway (upper left side of fort) both headed towards the dugout relay station. By late 1967, the set was dismantled. A shooting range was later installed. Photo is an aerial view of Fort Apache in the late 1950's/early 1960's (from the author's collection)
The photograph below shows a reverse angle of the above photograph and includes the legionaire wall and gateway (upper left of picture).
Reverse view of Fort Apache taken in early to mid 1950's (from the author's collection)
Filming at Fort Apache (from the author's collection)
(from the author's collection)
Stairs next to the main entrance (from the Mark S. Cramer, MD, FAAFP collection)
(from the Jerry L. Schneider collection)
The buildings between the two fort entrances (from the Mark S. Cramer, MD, FAAFP collection)
1947 movie Still from the movie Fort Apache (from the author's collection)
The fort jail (from the Mark S. Cramer, MD, FAAFP collection)
1950 movie still (from the author's collection)
1951 movie poster (from the author's collection)
The main entrance as seen in Apache
A 1954 view of the fort (from the Jerry L. Schneider collection)
![]() | ![]() |
Another film still (from the author's collection)
[an error occurred while processing this directive]