BONANZA CREEK RANCH

Bonanza Creek Ranch, just outside Santa Fe, has sprawling grounds, a 24-building town and five interior sets, surrounded by an unobstructed 360-degree vista.

“If you’ve ever seen a Western,” says location manager and animal wrangler Diego Dominguez, “there’s a good chance it was filmed at Bonanza.”

With just four weeks to prepare the location, the challenge was to take one seasoned movie ranch and carve it into four distinct towns fighting their way back from the Civil War.

“Bonanza had a lot of character to begin with,” says David Crank, production designer. “So the job was to edit what existed — squashing down the color palette, removing trim and any unnecessary pieces — and making everything feel as real as possible.”

Separating the ranch into quadrants, Crank identified distinct characteristics that could serve as visual hallmarks for each town, as well as common pieces that could be reused. Piece-by-piece, Wichita Falls, Red River Station, Dallas and Cranfills Gap began to emerge.