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In the Old West gunslingers walked the streets, stage coaches rattled into town, and the buildings had distinctive wooden facades. Well, the days of the Old West are long gone, but there is at least one place where it still lives: Old Town Temecula.
Temecula’s old town looks the part of an Old West town. The streets are lined with historical buildings that date back to the 1800’s and the turn of the century and have preserved the style and character of that period. These old buildings look like they were built as part of a movie set, but they are a part of real history.

Some of Temecula’s Wild West history is somewhat more tarnished than the Wild West we see in the movies. An old mass grave outside the town bears accusatory witness to the Temecula Massacre of December, 1846.

2009 also marks a brighter spot in Temecula’s history. Temecula’s first Post Office opened 150 years ago, and was only the seventh one in California south of the Tehachapi Mountains. At the time the Post Office operated out of Magee Store, though it has moved several times since. The office opened in 1859 just 9 years after California became the 31st state in 1850.

Temecula revels in it rough and tumble history and that is never more evident than during the annual Western Days celebration that is held each year in May. During Western Days, costumed actors walk the streets as Old West characters performing humorous skits to the delight of Temecula residents and those who travel to the city for the occasion. The festival also includes a working blacksmith exhibit, a calf roping lessons, live music and more. For many, the culmination of Western Days is Old Town Temecula’s Chili Cookoff. This event is a sanctioned International Chili Society district cook off and brings out fierce competition each year.

This year there will also be a Halloween themed recreation of the Old West with the ghosts of Old West figures walking the streets and hiding in three haunted mazes set up in Old Town Temecula for the first annual Haunted Old Town celebration. Visitors to Old Town Temecula during this six day event might mistake it for a true Ghost Town!

Its historic buildings and the actors taking part in the Old Town celebrations aren’t Temecula’s only tie to the movies. The city was also home to Erle Stanley Gardner who created that famous TV and movie personality Perry Mason, who could make any hardened criminal crack on the witness stand and betray his guilt.

Residents of Temecula enjoy Old Town’s Wild West character and the many celebrations the city offers each year as it tries to recapture the events of America’s not so distant past.