If you go inside, you see there’s a huge painted sign for ‘Chamber’s Groceries’ occupying one wall. The café was built in 1985 to commemorate the film and contains all kinds of memorabilia. It was in front of the saloon that Mattie’s father was gunned down by drunken Tom Chaney ( Jeff Corey).Ī couple of doors along stands the True Grit Café, 123 North Lena Street, on what, at the time of filming was an empty lot. If you look above the frontage of Ridgway Adventure Sports, 109 North Lena Street on the corner of Sherman Street, you’ll see it still bears the ‘Fort Smith Saloon’ sign. On the opposite side of the park to the station, the buildings along North Lena Street stood in for the main street of ‘Fort Smith’. True Grit film location: the main street of 'Fort Smith, Arkansas', with the 'saloon' on the left: North Lena Street, Ridgway, Colorado | Photograph: Google Maps The green square, where the gallows were erected for the film is Hartwell Park, still recognisable as the centre of the town. As you can see, the station faced a pleasant grassy park, less pleasant once Mattie witnesses the hanging of three men. Mattie Ross is in town following the murder of her father, determined to pursue the killer herself if necessary. Ten rooms display equipment, journals, photographs, clothes, furniture and more, telling the story of ranch and farm life from the 1880s and, alongside, you can also see the prison wagon, in which cranky US Marshall Rooster Cogburn ( Wayne) delivers into town his prisoners from ‘Indian Territory’ at the beginning of the film. The railway station, at which Mattie Ross ( Kim Darby) first arrives, has since become redundant and now houses the Ouray County Ranch History Museum, 321 Sherman Street at North Railroad Street. The rail line had to be abandoned and the town itself came close to being submerged. In the Eighties, the Uncompahgre River was dammed to form the Ridgway Reservoir.
In fact, the railroad was one of the factors in choosing the town as a location for the film, but that’s all changed.
Ridgway was once the northern terminus of the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, and was built to serve the nearby mining communities of Telluride and Ouray. ‘Fort Smith, Arkansas’ is the main square of Ridgway, an old railroad town on the Uncompahgre River in the San Juan Mountains, about 15 miles north of Telluride, now a famous ski resort and home of the annual Telluride Film Festival.
The book’s wintry setting is changed to golden autumn, gorgeously captured by cinematographer Lucien Ballard, a Sam Peckinpah regular who photographed The Wild Bunch the same year. He clearly recognised a good script and went on to win the only Oscar of his career.Īlthough set on the border of Arkansas and what is now Oklahoma, the film was shot largely in Colorado. Given his political stance, it’s surprising that John Wayne himself championed the adaptation of Charles Portis’s novel by leftist Marguerite Roberts, who had actually been blacklisted throughout the Fifties. Meanwhile stay safe and travel the world online. We apologise and, as soon as travel restrictions are lifted, will return to posting original photographs. * During the current situation, we're relying more than usual on Google Maps images and stock photographs.
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