Greetings family, friends and neighbors! This week's rambling is a bit of local history when "Snakeville" was known by movie viewers worldwide. Also attached is a photo file of a ninety eight year old Stereo Card from my collection picturing Charlie Chaplin about to launch a Lemon Cream Pie in your direction! Bill
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Nostalgic Ramblings
SNAKEVILLE
Midway between Decoto’s Central Pacific Depot and the old adobe Mission at the foot off Mission Peak, and not far from the mouth of Canyon where Jose Vallejo built his water powered flour mill once stood the mythical little village of Snakeville. Well, I should say that it was quiet until all bedlam broke loose when Alkali Ike, Mustang Pete and Slippery Slim tried most everything to get the attention of the town sweetheart, Sophie Clutts! Beginning in 1913 and the madcap Snakeville Comedies cast of the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company created endless slapstick chaos in dozens of silent one reel films on the stage of the state-of-the-art glass roofed studio, in the streets of the one sided railroad town of Niles, down the dusty road at the old mission, up the hill at the imposing Masonic Home, and in and around bucolic Niles Canyon. While G.M. Anderson’s western cast was cranking out as many as five Broncho Billy western’s a week, former vaudevillians Augustus Carney, Harry Todd, Victor Potel were roughhousing and taking pratfalls in the mythical village of Snakeville to gain the affection of actress Margaret Joslin. Ben Turpin and dozens of other characters including Fred Church as Coyote Simpson and David Kirkland as Dr. Dopeum appeared in the popular Snakeville Comedies often directed by Wallace Beery. Essanay’s international reputation as the “House of Comedies” was enhanced with the arrival of Charlie Chaplin in 1915 and the making of five classic films and the creation of his iconic “Tramp” character. The Snakeville unit was popular in town with many of the cast and crew living and raising families in Niles and participating in community activities including the the companies Indian’s baseball team. Essanay is remembered mostly for Charlie Chaplin’s short stint in Niles and G.M. Anderson’s Broncho Billy cowboy character that set the stage for all movie westerns that followed, however for three years over a century ago the fanciful little town of Snakeville was the comedy capital of the world....no kidding!
-Bill 4/23
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