(CAÑON CITY, Colo.) — Cañon City was originally settled during the gold boom in the 1860's. They were the last stop before people went north to the mountains to mine. The city supplied minors with all the necessities but as the civil war happened the city almost died out. Lisa Studts the Dire ctor of the Royal Gorge Museum & History Center said, "When the Civil War broke out in 1861. People left and joined the war and so Cañon City was pretty much abandoned at that time." But around the turn of the century, a new boom happened... silent films and Cañon City became Hollywood before Hollywood was born. Cañon City's high mountain backdrops and vast open ranges set the perfect scene for silent and Western films drawing many big names like Tom Mix and even John Wayne. It was also where many got their start like Jack Donahue who later became the police chief for Cañon City and Grace McHugh, a Golden native who wanted to become a star. In there, McHugh filmed impromptu scenes and used the St. Cloud hotel fire as the perfect shot for a fire escape scene. However, that scene would never make it to the big screen. "Unfortunately, filming that scene, she was on a horse in the Arkansas River and her horse got spooked and she fell off her horse and started being pulled down the river," Studts said. "A cameraman, who was on scene at the time jumped in and after her, was able to get a hold of her and they were starting to go up the side of the bank and then another wave came through and watched them both down the river and both drowned." Many shops like the Palace Frug store were used for movie scenes over the years and eventually, Cañon City set the scene for one of their biggest movies ever about another big industry there... the prisons. The release of the Cañon City Movie about the 1947 Prison Break created quite a stir in the city. Roy Best, the warden, insisted on playing himself in the movie. People lined the streets and store fronts were decorated with scenes from the movie for the debut at the Skyline Theater. The movie industry allowed Cañon City to boom from the locals who were cast as extras, to hotels that housed the film stars to the restaurants that fed the cast. "There was a restaurant, local restaurant here in town that was well known for catering." Studts commented, "The cast and crew. It was named Sally's Club Paradise. And if you were very interested in meeting a star, you would go down there." 'Our Souls at Night', a 2017 romantic drama featuring Jane Fonda and Robert Redford, marks the most recent film shot in the city. With the founding of Hollywood, the Cañon City film industry ended up like one of its first sets a ghost town. However, the Royal Gorge region itself continued to thrive with its maximum security prisons housing some of the worst criminals like the masterminds of 9/11 and the Unabomber till he passed to the rafting on the local rivers and the tourist draw of the orchards and Royal Gorge Bridge making the region what we know it is today. ...read more read less