Texas Hollywood/Fort Bravo is a

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

-styled theme park in the

province of Almería Almería (, also , ) is a province of the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Granada, Murcia, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is the homonymous city of Almería. Almería has an area of . With 701, ...

in Spain. Built in the early 1970s, it lies a few kilometres to the north of the N-340 road highway (468 km mark), near the town of

Tabernas Tabernas is a municipality of Almería province, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain, as well as the name of the principal town of the municipality. It is located on the edge of the famous Tabernas Desert, the filming location of many ...

History

Around 1977, Rafa Molina, a stuntman, bought the set for

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

6,000 to improve his job opportunities if the set was to be used for filming. In the early 1980s, he started charging visitors money to tour the set. Mock shoot-outs and barroom brawls were later added, and one of the buildings was converted into a full saloon to sell beer. It is now known as Fort Bravo.

Style

The building architecture in Texas Hollywood is of two different styles built back to back split between two different areas. The Western set features a blacksmith, jail, hotel,

gallows A gallows (or scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended (i.e., hung) or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks ...

and

clapboard Clapboard (), also called bevel siding, lap siding, and weatherboard, with regional variation in the definition of these terms, is wooden siding of a building in the form of horizontal boards, often overlapping. ''Clapboard'' in modern Americ ...

buildings from the

American Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

era. The Spanish set consists of a town square, a church, and houses found in a typical Mexican

pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

. Texas Hollywood remains an active film set.

Media

The television series ''

Queen of Swords The Queen of Swords is a card in the Suit of Swords, part of the Minor Arcana set of the Tarot. Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play tarot card games. In English-speaking countries, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for div ...

'' was filmed May 3, 2000 to December 12, 2000, principally in the Spanish buildings and the surrounding

Tabernas Desert The Tabernas Desert ( es, Desierto de Tabernas) is one of Spain's semi-arid deserts, located within Spain's south-eastern province of Almería. It is in the interior, about north of the provincial capital Almería, in the Tabernas municipalit ...

. The Western buildings were also used for the series with the Western jail serving as the Spanish jail and one of the large Western buildings was converted into a sound stage containing the living quarters of both Senorita Alvarado and Col. Montoya. The ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...

'' episode "

A Town Called Mercy "A Town Called Mercy" is the third episode of the seventh series of the British science fiction television series '' Doctor Who'', transmitted on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2012. It was written by Toby Whithouse and directed ...

" was filmed here and at Oasys/Mini Hollywood in 2012.Spanish link for Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywoo

Retrieved 12 september 2012

Photos

File:Fort Bravo Texas Hollywood September 2013.JPG, Fort at the entrance to Fort Bravo/Texas Hollywood File:Spanish town square Fort Bravo Texas Hollywood September 2013.JPG, Spanish pueblo in Texas Hollywood File:Fort Bravo Texas Hollywood, Almería.jpg, Street view of the Western town in Texas Hollywood File:Grand Central Bank Fort Bravo Texas Hollywood.JPG, Bank used in "A Town Called Mercy"

References

External links