Columbia Ranch-historic location (Burbank, California)

 place with historical importance, interesting place, film/video production studio/facility, historical layer / disappeared object, movie ranch

Columbia Ranch-historic location.

This was the ranch as it existed from 1934 through the mid 1950s. The eastern 40 acres (in the semi-circle shape) was leased land. You can see it came down and nearly met with the route of the Ventura Freeway. By the early 1970s, Columbia and Warner had merged their production facilities onto the main Warner lot (then known as the Burbank Studios) with Columbia Ranch becoming a part of the combined facilities. When Columbia was purchased by Sony and moved to their Culver City lot (formerly MGM Studios), this ranch was bought by Warner as one of their back lot locations. Today, it is used extensively in TV and commercials. If you know what to look for, you can see it in many, many commercials.

Columbia Pictures used this lot extensively for it's outdoor and location shoots. Among the movies shot here were "Lost Horizons," "Rolling Along," and the "Blondie" series, as well as The Three Stooges movies. Among the TV shows shot here were "Dennis the Menace," "Bewitched," and "Father Know Best." The was also the location of the New York street that "Friends" live on.

Please read this interesting history of this once and future small backlot location: www.columbiaranch.net/history.html .