Sedona News – The Sedona Heritage Museum is set to once more host the M Bar Lazy B Chuck Wagon for the popular Chuck Wagon Dinner and a Movie program, on Saturday, April 20. Gates open at 4:30 pm, and dinner will be served at 5 pm. The film Virginia City will be screened in the historic Apple Shed after the meal.
The meal will be prepared by award winning chuck wagon cook Bill Cowan and his crack team in cast iron prepared over open flames. Bill has a message for those who attended last year and are considering attending again this year: he promises he’ll remember to season the beef! This year’s menu will be chuck wagon beef stew, Dutch oven biscuits, and fried cinnamon apples.
Guests who arrive at 4:30 will have a chance to watch the “cookies” (chuck wagon cooks) putting the final preparations to the meal. The cookies will be happy to answer questions about what they’re doing and chat with guests. Cowan’s authentic 1880s chuck wagon will be on display for guests to explore, as well.
A cookie will holler for folks to “Come ‘n get it!” at 5 o’clock when the meal will be served. After guests have enjoyed their vittles, the movie screened will be 1940’s Virginia City, an action packed film about the Confederacy’s last gasp at a cash infusion – stealing it from Virginia City, Nevada. Starring Errol Flynn, Miriam Hopkins, Randolph Scott, and Humphrey Bogart, the film was called by critics “lively entertainment” and “a big, expensive, noisy movie which aims for size and spectacle over, say, suspense and thrills.” It was the largest movie production made in Sedona to that time.
In writing about the experience of filming Virginia City, Errol Flynn recalled that it wasn’t “all beer and skittles,” before describing cold, early morning trips from Flagstaff to Sedona and other sites to film. “One day we are at Schnebly Hill, looking deep down into the depths of glorious Oak Creek Canyon…The next we are ninety miles away at Round Hills,” Flynn wrote.
Tickets are $35 each, and supplies are limited (the event sold out in 2023). They are available now on the Sedona Heritage Museum’s website: https://sedonamuseum.org/event/chuck-wagon-dinner-movie/. The movie will begin between 5:30 and 5:45, and has a run time of 121 minutes.
The Sedona Historical Society operates the Sedona Heritage Museum located in Jordan Historical Park, 735 Jordan Road in Uptown Sedona, Arizona. Open daily 11 am – 3 pm. For more information call 928-282-7038 or visit www.sedonamuseum.org.
