Paint Your Wagon Movie Site

 This is the Paint Your Wagon movie site, as it looked July 2002. The movie stared Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Jean Seberg. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band also appears. Costing twenty million to make in 1968. The site is located in Baker County, Oregon in the Eagle Cap Mountains along East Eagle and Jack Creek. The site is a long drive from Baker City, Oregon over rough but good mountain roads. The scenery is beautiful but as I drove to the site I wondered how the moviemakers located it. It is very secluded. No Name City was built on this site but torn down after the movie was made as required by the forest service. As you can see in the picture below there are still remains of the movie set. I was very young at the time, but I remember my dad taking me to see the bear that was used in the movie and all the hippies (this was the late sixties) that came to town to be extras.

If you have stories about the making of this movie and would like to share them please email your story to me and I will post it on this site. 

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Ed Danehy Writes:

  I came across your site while trying to see if a fact I know about Paint Your Wagon has been recorded by someone.  I like your photography and comments.  Here is my story: 

   I am a retired geologist and in 1969 I worked for a consulting firm in Palo Alto, CA.  One of the geotechnical engineers (he had rank over me) went out to the film site because they had a problem.  The tunnels they needed for the film were being flooded.  The problem was they placed the tunnels too close to the river.  The solution was to move them to a higher location. 

   One Web site gave a blooper about the concrete walls needed for safety showing on the tunnel sides.  Another site gave 4 bloopers other than this one.  As if movies get made with perfect continuity, never showing security wires, and such.

CHS Writes: 

HI! It was a treat to come across your website! After seeing  PYW for the **nth time a few nights ago, I wondered about others with a memory of the making of it...my husband was an extra, and I auditioned at the Baker casting office for the role of a saloon girl but was told that (at 20) I looked too innocent! We were living in Berkeley when word got out about parts for bearded, longhairs as extras, so we joined dozens of others camping in the woods of Oregon while the movie was being filmed...we have great photos, and recollections...!! Guys would leave or the day on the busses and return to the gals in camp with pockets stuffed with gourmet foods from the catering tent.... We attended the Grand Premiere in SF with several rows of other "extras" who made a jolly racket and almost got kicked out fun times!

Jerry Whittington

Hi, I was on the crew for the movie as a electrician, I worked with the big ark lights on the set and was actor as a prospector 

Go to this link for my credits: 

 I am sending you pictures of the town being built and the big ark lights. 

"Paint Your Wagon" was one of my first film jobs, I think of it more so than any of the other films I have worked on, I like it the most of any of the films, I had the most fun on this film like it was really happening back in the 1800s, the costumes and the way the people looked was great, The town was great just like you were back in time, I was one of the Gold Prospectors in a few scenes, I didn't have any speaking parts.

Making of Paint Your Wagon Photos Courtesy of  Jerry Whittington

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Revised: 19 Aug 2007 18:14:36 -0400 .