Dale Court and Trigger Street honor two early Chatsworth celebrities: Western singer/actress Dale Evans (1912-2001) and Trigger (1932-1965), the palomino horse ridden by Evans’s superstar husband Roy Rogers (1911-1998). Evans was born Frances Smith in Uvalde, TX. Initially a radio singer, she adopted her stage name by 1935, when she had a show in Louisville, KY. Her career eventually went national and she came to Hollywood in 1941. Three years later, she was paired with Rogers for the first time on the movie The Cowboy and the Senorita. Rogers, born Leonard Slye, grew up in Ohio near the Kentucky border. He moved to Lawndale in the early 1930s and gained some notoriety in 1934 with his singing group the Sons of the Pioneers. He too went Hollywood – but stardom didn’t come until 1938, the year he was rechristened Roy Rogers and purchased his equine costar Trigger (born Golden Cloud in San Diego). Rogers would become filthy rich – not just from his movie salaries but from his vast merchandising empire, as he had shrewdly retained the licensing rights to his name and likeness. He and Evans married in 1947 and bought their 130 acre Chatsworth ranch in 1955. Dale Court and Trigger Street were christened in 1964 when the cowpoke couple decided to subdivide the property. They retired to Apple Valley (near Victorville) the following year. As for Trigger, he was stuffed after his death and put on display at the now-defunct Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum. You can currently visit him at a John Wayne(!) exhibit in Fort Worth, TX.
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