Who Knew Atlanta, GA and Mayberry, NC were so close?

Below in pink, you see Tara from ‘Gone With The Wind’ and under it, the Mayberry set for the ‘Andy Griffith Show’ on the ‘Back Forty’.

Forty Acres was a film studio backlot that belonged to RKO Pictures and later Desilu Productions, located in Culver City, and is best known as Forty Acres, or “the back forty”. It had other names such as “Desilu Culver”, the “RKO backlot” and “Pathé 40 Acre Ranch” depending on which studio owned the property at the time.

For nearly fifty years it was famous for its outdoor full-scale sets such as Western Street and Atlanta Street or Main Street and was used in films like King Kong (1933) and Gone with the Wind (1939), and television shows like Bonanza and Star Trek. In 1976 it was razed for re-development.

Forty Acres is best remembered for providing the backdrop for the town of Mayberry on the television series The Andy Griffith Show. Many of the street scenes and buildings on the backlot were seen regularly on television screens across America and became quite familiar with viewers. The original Town of Atlanta set, comprising a New York style street, a town square and a residential area to the east, was situated in the center of the property and was used on shows like Adventures of Superman, Ozzie and Harriet, Batman, The Green Hornet, and Mission: Impossible. It was also used on Star Trek in three episodes entitled “Miri”, “The Return of the Archons” and “The City on the Edge of Forever”.

The Tara set, which sat on a sloping rise at the north western corner of the property, was torn down in 1959 to eventually become the Stalag 13 set for Hogan’s Heroes. Most of the sets, which included Camp Henderson on Gomer Pyle, were situated primarily in the center, south and west end of the property.

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