The town was first built as a live-in “Old West” motion picture set in the 1940s, which provided an on-site location for the actors to live and at the same time to have their “lodgings” used as part of the movie set. A number of Westerns and early television shows were filmed here, including The Cisco Kid and Edgar Buchanan’s Judge Roy Bean. Roy Rogers, Dick Curtis, and Russell Hayden were among the original developers and investors, and Gene Autry frequently taped his show at the six-lane Pioneer Bowl bowling alley. Its construction was credited to one “A.E. Thompson” in 1947 and Rogers himself rolled out the first ball in 1949. School-age children were hired as pinsetters until the installation of automatic pin-setting equipment in the 1950s. According to the Morongo Basin Historical Society, the bowling alley is one of the oldest in continuous use in California. To retain the old-west flavor and spirit of Pioneertown, the re-enactment group, Mane Street Stampede Wild West Show, performs a variety of shoot-‘em-up acts on Mane Street every Saturday in the summers.

On July 11, 2006 some of Pioneertown was burned in the Sawtooth Complex fire, which also burned into Yucca Valley and Morongo Valley. Firefighters managed to save the historic movie set buildings, but much of the surrounding desert habitat was damaged. Among the structures saved was Pappy & Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace.