Since the year 1919, the Alabama Hills and the eastern Sierra Nevada have been a favorite location for Hollywood films, especially cowboy movies. Among the cowboys who rode here were Jack Hoxie, Hoot Gibson, William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy), Lee Powell (The Lone Ranger), Tex Ritter, Tim Holt, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Randolph Scott and John Wayne.

More than seven hundred feature films and one thousand commercials contained scenes shot in the Alabama Hills and the eastern Sierra Nevada including Death Valley.

The Lone Pine Film History Museum was founded in 2006 to collect, preserve and exhibit memorabilia associated with these films.

The name of the museum was changed to the Museum of Western Film History in 2015.