The Wild, Warped West

The bowling alley that time forgot is located just north of Yucca Valley, two hours from Los Angeles. There, at six-lane Pioneer Bowl, in a dust-blown former movie set created in 1947 for filming Westerns, you can roll 10 frames on lanes built so that Roy Rogers could amuse

himself between takes.

It’s all a bit surreal, but then, so is Pioneertown.

In the beginning, many of the buildings had only three walls to facilitate lighting and camera angles. Then, gradually, pieces of Pioneertown were sold off and permanent residents moved in. The replicated Old West town still appears in commercials, music videos and the occasional feature film, its permanent population now standing at about 200. And,

well, people gotta bowl.

At Pioneer Bowl, you step from a late- 19th century scene with a saloon and hitching posts into a tangerine dream. The place is a 1950s flashback, from its Dreamsicle color scheme to the vintage plastic chairs and classic wood Brunswick lanes. Faux bowling pins jut in stark relief from some walls, while others feature murals by Hollywood set painter Wallace Roland Stark that depict cowboy humor from the 1940s. One reads: “Two things we don’t tolerate in Pioneertown, stealing our women, and not paying your beer bill!”

The scene is all the more disorienting when you notice, just above the rows of bowling shoes behind the bar, a clock that runs backward.

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Pioneer Bowl is located between Pioneertown Road and Mane Street, Pioneertown, (760) 365-3615.