Will Rogers State Beach

Los Angeles's Will Rogers State Beach sits on the site of Inceville, the sprawling silent-film Western ranch director Thomas Ince built here in 1911, complete with cowboys, bison and Lakota performers brought out from Oklahoma. The guide traces the ranch's rise and the nitrate fire that nearly ended Ince's career, then follows the land through a second devastating wildfire to the cowboy-turned-humorist who later claimed this same stretch of coastline for himself. Listen while facing the water, where the movie frontier once stood.