Panel Hopes to Rustle Up Funds for Western Park

SIMI VALLEY — Long on vision but short on cash, city officials and local volunteers have pondered for years how to rebuild the old western movie sets at Corriganville Regional Park.

Even plans to build a bare-bones facility--a parking lot, caretaker’s office, restrooms and visitors center--have languished for lack of funding.

So now some Simi Valley residents and the public agency that oversees the park have formed a committee to hunt for government and private grants--any source of money that could get plans for the park off the ground.

The project will not be cheap. The essential facilities will cost about $1.5 million, and re-creating the 24 old buildings used in Hollywood westerns could take another $4 million or $5 million.

But agency member and City Councilman Bill Davis said formation of the committee could be the first step toward opening the park to the public.

“It could be the cornerstone of really making Corriganville worthwhile,” he said. “Right now, it’s just an empty piece of dirt.”

In Corriganville’s prime, the now-vacant land near Smith Road on the east end of the city held a complete Wild West main street. Silhouetted against the area’s rocky terrain, a saloon, hotel and general store provided the backdrop for such movies as “Fort Apache.”

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Corriganville also doubled as a movie theme park, a low-tech forerunner of today’s studio tours. But in 1970, the buildings burned to the ground.

For the last eight years, city officials and Simi residents have discussed plans to rebuild Corriganville.

The city and the local park district purchased about 190 acres of the land in 1988. Soon after, some area residents formed the Corriganville Preservation Committee, a group dedicated to finding money for the park’s reconstruction.

Members see rebuilding Corriganville as a way to preserve an important piece of Simi history and to create a new tourist attraction in the city.

“It’s a very special piece of property,” said Steve Gillum, chairman of the Corriganville Preservation Committee. “It’s important to film history and [is] one of the first amusement parks.”

But the preservation committee has had a hard time convincing residents to contribute money to a project that is still just a dream. And it has had to compete against other, more established and visible charities in town.

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As a result, the group has only $6,000 in its building fund, member Dave Hugo said.

So on Wednesday, the executive board of the Rancho Simi Open Space Conservation Agency agreed to form a committee, including representatives of the preservation committee and city government, to hunt for grant money. Any cash raised would go toward building basic facilities--the restrooms, office and visitors center--as well as providing power, water and sewer service to the site. Reconstruction of the old main street would come later.

“We’re very pleased that they’ve come to this conclusion, that they need to go after the funds with us,” Hugo said. “If they’re willing to use their grant writers and join us in a fund-raising venture, we’re more than willing.”

Although it will probably be months before the committee’s search yields results, Davis said the effort could help convince some area residents to donate money to the park project.

Potential patrons, he said, need to see that the project is moving forward.

“They don’t want to donate $100,000 to your project to see it sit there for three or four years,” he said.

“They want to see it used.”