Robbers Roost, Grave Valley & the Sundance Kid

When I first came up with the idea for The Preachers Son, I imagined it taking place in Utah for plot reasons that will be revealed later in Act Two. Little did I know, however, that Utah has been the on-site location for many Hollywood films due to it's eerie, deserted landscapes and otherworldly-shaped rock out-carvings, which stand in defiance of gravity and just good sense. Beginning with Stagecoach in the 1920s, southern Utah in particular has been the location of the following films, to name a few: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Planet of the Apes, Robbers Roost, The Outlaw Josie Wales, How the West Was One and The Searchers.

                                          John Wayne, The Searchers, 1956

Another reason why Utah works for the story is because of a place called Robber's Roost, an impenetrable hideout founded by Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their wild west gang the "Wild Bunch." There in that sparse wasteland filled with cactus, red dirt and dust devils, was a hellish place hidden from the law that only an outlaw could love.

                                          Butch Cassidy's gang, the "Wild Bunch"


Today, Hanksville, Utah, population 250, is the town closest to where Robbers Roost existed. When our tale took place in 1870, Hanksville was just a settlement that was part of a larger area known as "Grave Valley"-- a good name for the destination of a preacher trying to save the souls of a violent generation still reeling from the bloody Civil War. What that says about a preacher who builds his church and homestead so close to the hideout for infamous murderers and bandits is up for debate. But regardless of the father's mindset, "Grave Valley" was the perfect place--with the perfect name--to raise a child who would later grow up to be a gunslinger.