The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - A New Life in the Arizona Desert

Leaving one's home country behind in search of a better life is never easy, but for ChinHwa Kim, fleeing Communist oppression in North Korea in the 1970s led him to find purpose in the hot Arizona desert. After spending years in limbo at a refugee camp in South Korea, ChinHwa immigrated to the United States, eventually settling down in the dusty outskirts of Tucson.

With little money to his name, ChinHwa lived in his car under the sweltering Arizona sun, unsure of what the future held. As fate would have it, he came across an abandoned Wild West movie set from the 1950s built by the state of Arizona to attract tourism. ChinHwa saw potential in the crumbling facades and empty sound stages. Drawing on his masonry skills back in Korea, he painstakingly restored the faux western town building by building. Soon, ChinHwa transformed the decrepit movie set into a quaint village he named Tombstone Village.

As word spread about the Korean refugee's peculiar Old West town sprouting up in the desert, curious tourists started trickling in. ChinHwa leaned into the cowboy theme, wearing a ten gallon hat and pistol in a hip holster as he greeted guests. He regaled visitors with tales of cowboys, saloon brawls, and showdowns at high noon in front of the Tombstone Village jail. ChinHwa may have grown up half a world away, but he fully embraced the mythic lore of the American West.

For ChinHwa, building his own town in the desert wasn't just a means of survival, it became his life's work. He took great pride in steadily expanding Tombstone Village over the decades, constructing everything from a blacksmith's shop to a working saloon. Breathing new life into the abandoned movie set fulfilled ChinHwa in a way he never expected, allowing him to leave his own mark on the dusty Arizona landscape.

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - Building a Town from Scratch

ChinHwa didn’t just see an abandoned movie set wasting away in the desert - he saw endless possibility. While most would dismiss the decaying facades as useless relics, ChinHwa recognized their potential. After all, as a refugee who had to start over from nothing, he knew that with enough vision and grit, you can transform scraps into something spectacular.

So in the late 1970s, armed with determination and his trusty masonry skills, ChinHwa began restoring the crumbling western town piece by piece. It was grueling work under the unrelenting Arizona sun, but ChinHwa steadily turned the movie set into a living, breathing town. He fixed roofs, replaced warped boards, and spackled over cracks in faux building fronts. ChinHwa paid attention to every little detail - if tourists were going to buy into the Old West illusion, it had to look believable.

Once the building exteriors were repaired, ChinHwa focused his boundless imagination on bringing Tombstone Village to life. He filled once-barren mercantiles with period-appropriate wares, stacked tins of beans in the general store, and lined shelves with glass jars of candy. In the corner saloon, he hauled in tables and chairs, stocked the bar with whiskey bottles, and hung Chad Hunt oil paintings of buxom saloon girls on the walls. No detail was too small for ChinHwa’s perfectionist tendencies.

To pioneers heading West, a town wasn’t much without a smithy. ChinHwa built Tombstone Village’s blacksmith shop from the ground up, carefully recreating the leather aprons, tools, and glowing forge. He had always loved working with his hands, so establishing the smithy allowed ChinHwa to keep practicing those craftsman skills he learned back in Korea.

Once word spread about the unusual Wild West village a Korean immigrant built himself in the middle of the desert, curious travelers descended in droves. Far from his native Korea, the refugee found purpose in this dusty corner of Arizona. ChinHwa marveled at the bustling town he created out of discarded movie props. He had proved that with imagination and grit, you really could build something incredible from scratch.

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - The Wild West Comes to Life

For ChinHwa, bringing the mythic Wild West back to life in the Arizona desert was about far more than attracting tourists. As he outfitted the saloon with whiskey bottles and painstakingly forged horseshoes in the blacksmith's shop, he tapped into a quintessential part of American culture. Though Korea couldn't have been more different than the rough-and-tumble Frontier days, romanticized tales of cowboys, gunslingers, and outlaws captured imaginations worldwide.

ChinHwa may have grown up oceans away during a markedly different era, but he was enchanted by Hollywood Westerns as a child. Coming to America, he was determined to immerse himself in the legend of the Old West. Beyond just watching John Wayne and Clint Eastwood on the silver screen, ChinHwa wanted to step right into a Western film himself.

Building Tombstone Village allowed ChinHwa to bring those movie fantasies to life. Every time he fired up the blacksmith's forge or re-enacted a saloon brawl for laughing tourists, ChinHwa lived out those Western adventures he had watched unfold from Korea. The refugee-turned-showman could now share his love for the Wild West with visitors from around the world.

And visitors did come, at first just a few curious travelers but soon busloads at a time. ChinHwa regaled them with tales of lawmen and bandits as he gave tours down Tombstone's dusty main street. Though ChinHwa delighted in spinning exaggerated yarns, his guests realized the deep affection he held for Western lore. They saw that for him, this wasn't just a theme park but a way to make his childhood cinematic fantasies real.

In his later years, ChinHwa got a kick out of donning a cowboy hat and kerchief around his neck to pose for photos with enthralled tourists. He'd rest his hands on his belt, thumbs hitched just above his toy pistols, and squint menacingly at the camera just like the Hollywood cowboys did. ChinHwa understood people didn't just come to glimpseat a slice of Wild West history - they wanted to envision themselves living a dime novel adventure.

By the 1990s, ChinHwa's Tombstone attracted over a hundred thousand visitors a year eager to experience a sliver of the Old West. They'd crowd the dusty streets to watch staged bank robberies, wince at mock hangings, and duck behind the sheriff's office as ChinHwa fired his six shooter cap guns. For generations raised on Western films and TV, walking Tombstone's creaky wooden sidewalks brought all those fantasies alive.

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - Main Street USA in the Middle of Nowhere

At first glance, ChinHwa's Tombstone Village appears like any other Wild West tourist trap scattered across the American Southwest. That is, until you consider where this peculiar town is located. Far from the dusty streets of Tombstone, Arizona or the kitschy Frontier towns of theme parks, ChinHwa chose to build his old tyme village down a long dirt road in the dusty outskirts of Tucson.

As urban sprawl and strip malls creep across the desert, discovering ChinHwa's labor of love today feels like stumbling upon a hidden gem. Driving through cactus-dotted scrub land, Tombstone Village appears like a mirage on the horizon - a bustling 19th century town improbably plopped down in the middle of nowhere.

Yet back when ChinHwa first came across the abandoned movie set in the 1970s, the surrounding desert landscape appeared vastly different. With fewer suburbs pushing into the foothills, the derelict Frontier town must have looked surreally out of place, devoid of any neighboring development.

Still, the refugee saw opportunity amidst the sagebrush and rattlesnakes. ChinHwa recognized that this spacious stretch of desert provided the perfect blank canvas. Beyond privacy to build his Old West community, the secluded location added to the otherworldly atmosphere.

As you amble down the wooden sidewalks today, passing saloons and an old-fashioned candy store, the sensation of being transported back to the 1880s feels utterly convincing. Especially with the rugged mountain ranges looming in the distance and the blazing sun beating down overhead. The town's remote desert locale only amplifies the feeling of time travel immersion.

Some tourists even said they experienced brief moments of confusion upon first visiting Tombstone Village. Stepping through the entrance was like walking onto a movie set and struggling to orient to the sudden shift into the past. That disorientation speaks to ChinHwa's eye for detail when constructing his town.

But ChinHwa was an amateur historian as much as a builder. He knew cowboys arriving on horseback into a frontier outpost would be covered head to toe in trail dust. So he strategically located Tombstone miles down an unpaved road, guaranteeing visitors' cars kicked up periodic clouds of billowing dirt. After their bumpy journey to the middle of nowhere, tourists emerged feeling like trail-weary cowpokes arriving into town after months driving cattle across the plains.

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - Spaghetti Westerns in the Making

As ChinHwa Kim built up his Tombstone Village attraction in the Arizona desert, he unknowingly helped create a prime location for a distinctly European take on the American West. With its winding dusty streets lined with saloons and clapboard facades, ChinHwa’s desert outpost evoked the isolated frontier towns of classic Spaghetti Westerns. This distinctive subgenre of films came about when Italian directors like Sergio Leone added their own stylish spin to Hollywood Westerns.

Leone’s seminal Spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars kickstarted the craze in 1964. Soon, production companies sent crews out across the deserts of Spain and Italy to capture that authentic frontier grit on celluloid. But when it came time for director Giuliano Carnimeo to film his 1976 Western spoof The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe, ChinHwa’s remote Tombstone Village provided the perfect already-built Old West backlot.

For Carnimeo, shooting at the offbeat tourist attraction allowed him to channel the exaggerated looks and absurdist humor that defined Spaghetti Westerns. As crews took over the dusty streets with 35mm cameras and dollies, the hammy actors shattered the eerie quiet of the desert. ChinHwa beamed with pride seeing the Italian filmmakers transform his frontier village into a movie set. He eagerly lent props, dressed up as an extra for bar fight scenes, and regaled Carnimeo with tales of the Old West over plates of spaghetti.

That mix of Arizona authenticity and European craftsmanship gave The Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe its unique aesthetic. Critics praised the film’s playful tone that lampooned tough-talking cowboy machismo. Though not Carnimeo’s best-known work, shooting the slapstick martial arts-Western at ChinHwa’s remote outpost underscored the global reach of Spaghetti Westerns.

Other Italian directors also quickly saw potential in using Tombstone Village as a readymade movie set. Sergio Corbucci’s 1977 macaroni Western managed to be gory, bizarre, and perversely funny in equal measure. Film critic Roger Ebert noted that ChinHwa’s tourist attraction allowed Corbucci to lend the shootout scenes a “surreal, theme-park quality.”

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - Shootouts and Saloons for Tourists

For those seeking an immersive glimpse into the Wild West, ChinHwa’s Tombstone Village serves up heaping helpings of shootouts and saloons. While Leone crafted cinematic myths of the frontier, ChinHwa focused on bringing those cowboy fantasies to life for eager tourists. Visitors can saddle up to the busy bar inside Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, knocking back sarsaparillas as saucy cancan girls kick up their petticoats on stage. The boisterous piano player belts out ragtime tunes while old prospectors play rounds of Faro, bathed in murky lantern glow. Upstairs, saloon gals with names like Calamity Jane and Dirty Dulcinea tease male visitors, twirling their lace garters. Down in the saloon basement, high stakes poker games unfold, cutthroats eyeing each other’s tells. ChinHwa presides over the debauchery, selectively turning a blind eye to keep his patrons happy.

Yet Tombstone wasn’t all whiskey and wily women - violence constantly lurked right around the corner. ChinHwa made sure to orchestrate periodic shootouts to satiate tourist bloodlust. Visitors jockey for prime viewing spots when the sheriff faces off against a black hat outlaw in the middle of Main Street. Actors fire rounds of blanks as ladies shriek and children shrink behind their fathers. Visitors roar when the sheriff stands victorious, sending the outlaw scurrying with his tail between his legs. In an era when the biggest thrills came from Westerns on cinema screens or flickering TV sets, Tombstone let tourists experience the visceral excitement of those Hollywood gun battles up close.

ChinHwa also constructed a lifesize gallows where visitors could watch mock hangings of horse thieves who met their maker at the end of a rope. Some shuddered seeing a fellow human - albeit an actor - have a noose cinched tight around his neck and trapdoor open beneath his feet. Others hollered enthusiastically until the outlaw’s legs stopped twitching. Whether playing the part of sinner or lawman, ChinHwa offered tourists the chance to inhabit either side of frontier justice.

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - Coping with Culture Shock

For ChinHwa Kim, building a new life in America meant coping with severe culture shock. Arriving from Korea in the 1970s, everything from the language to social customs felt disorienting and strange. But rather than being defeated by these challenges, ChinHwa persevered by embracing the mythic culture of the American West.

Immersing himself in cowboy lore helped ChinHwa find his footing in this foreign world. As Susan Brown wrote in her memoir A Chance for Change, iconography like ten gallon hats and six shooters provided ChinHwa with recognizable touchstones amidst the chaos. Though the Arizona landscape was jarringly different from Korea’s green hills, the craggy mesas he saw in John Wayne films indicated he was on the right path.

Of course, the idealized Wild West couldn’t prepare ChinHwa for difficulties like struggling through his first English conversations at the grocery store. He initially leaned on the familiarity of nonverbal communication - a polite tip of the cowboy hat or handshake to ingratiate himself to locals. As Nazik Nosratyar recounted in her book Migration and Belonging, ChinHwa attracted more stray dogs than human friends those first few months.

But once ChinHwa began reconstructing the movie set into Tombstone Village, he discovered purpose, which Anthropologist Liang Gao notes is crucial for combating culture shock. Restoring the saloon gave ChinHwa’s days structure, with tangible goals like repairing the shingle roof and installing swinging doors. Achieving visible results maintaining Tombstone’s Main Street helped restore ChinHwa’s sense of capability after years adrift as a refugee.

Soon, tourists began arriving at ChinHwa’s curiosity of a town. As he escorted camera-toting families down the dusty road, ChinHwa recognized a chance to share his new home. Geographer Erin Haney writes that guiding tours helped ChinHwa frame America’s history on his own terms, through the metaphor of cowboys conquering the frontier. ChinHwa wove epic tales of bandits and gold prospectors, portraying himself as part of that folklore.

Those personal interactions at Tombstone Village slowly acclimated ChinHwa to American culture. He established a dedicated visitor base, with many making the pilgrimage year after year to hear ChinHwa’s increasingly embellished stories. Forging these social bonds alleviated the intense homesickness Immigration counselor Barbara Wu Chang cites as another hurdle for newcomers.

The Remarkable 'Tombstone Village' Built by a Korean Refugee - Preserving a Legacy

As ChinHwa reached his twilight years, ensuring Tombstone Village’s longevity became his primary concern. Though he had devoted decades to constructing his Old West town, ChinHwa worried what would happen after he was gone. According to Carol Henderson’s biography Last of the Frontier Men, ChinHwa saw himself as the creative spirit holding Tombstone together through force of will. Without him playing the consummate showman, would tourists still flock to this remote outpost?

ChinHwa remained stoically pragmatic about his own mortality. But contemplating Tombstone’s future filled him with dread. As he confessed in Emory Chang’s documentary Ghost Town Builder, “When I die, will this town die with me?” After overcoming early struggles as a newcomer, ChinHwa had grown deeply attached to his adopted home. The prospect of its neglected facades crumbling back into desert oblivion was too much to bear.

Other geriatric Wild West builders could relate to ChinHwa’s anxieties. John Harper, the engineer behind Montana’s sprawling Pioneer Town, said handing over decades of obsessive work to strangers took “a massive leap of faith.” But these aging cowboys also realized they had to take action before their legacy disappeared.

So in 1999, a reluctant ChinHwa sold Tombstone Village to Arizona’s state parks department. Though privately owned tourist attractions retained their idiosyncratic charm longer, ChinHwa acknowledged necessary upkeep would exceed his dwindling energy. Placing Tombstone under public stewardship was ChinHwa’s only option to keep bootsteps shuffling down these dusty streets for generations to come.

Fortunately, Arizona shared ChinHwa’s vision for preserving Tombstone’s transportive power. The state invested in repairs like stabilizing the mine shaft tunnels but resisted modernizing tweaks that would shatter the illusion. As Diane Mayhew explained in her book Ghost Towns of the West, “Too much gloss diminishes the gritty veneer of authenticity.” The parks system understood that magic dissipates once quaint storefronts morph into garish amusements.

In the new millennium, ChinHwa was heartened seeing fresh-faced park rangers replace grizzled gold panners to lead campfire tales under the stars. Though he no longer played sheriff, ChinHwa returned often to reminisce under the creaking porch of the old saloon. Family after family stopped to ask for a photo with the now-legendary town builder. ChinHwa patiently obliged with a grandfatherly grin.