8x10-inch lobby card (printed, cardstock) advertising the 1919 Fox Film Corp. feature, "Fighting for Gold," starring Tom Mix.

8x10 BW was the standard for lobby cards in the 1910s. In the United States, they switched to 11x14 in 1919-1920.

We don't know where this picture was filmed, although we do know Mix was starring in movies made in Newhall during this period and had only recently acquired his equine co-star Tony in Newhall (see below).

Just two of the five reels of this 50-minute picture survive. According to Mix biographer Robert S. Birchard, the existing reels "show it to have been a well-produced entertainment. It is the earliest example of Tom's Fox feature work to survive" (Birchard 1993:150).

Birchard writes (pg. 133):

Directed by Edward LeSaint, "Fighting for Gold" also features Teddy Sampson, Sid Jordan, Jack Nelson, Harry Lonsdale, Robert Dunbar, Hattie Buskirk, Frank Clark, Lucille Young ... and last but not least, a very young Buck Jones.

Born in Mix Run, Penn., on Jan. 6, 1880, Tom Mix appeared in more than 300 films (counting "shorts") from 1909 to 1935. He occasionally filmed in Newhall from 1916 to the mid-1920s and set up one of his early "Mixville" Western movie towns between Spruce Street (now called Main Street) and Newhall Avenue.

A part-time Newhall resident during that period, Mix lived across the street (probably on Walnut Street) from the Thibaudeau home, which was located at the southwest corner of Market Street and Newhall Avenue. In a televised interview, lifelong Newhall resident Gladys Thibaudeau Laney (1910-2014) said she observed Tom buying his sidekick "wonder horse" Tony on her family's property when she was a young girl. The timing works; Tom reportedly purchased Tony for $600 in 1917 from Pat Chrisman (1882-1953), a horse trainer and actor friend who co-starred in a number of Mix films (Birchard 1993:118).

In the late Teens, Mix established his most famous "Mixville" on Glendale Boulevard in the Silver Lake section of Los Angeles.

Prior to his movie career, Mix appeared in a series of Wild West shows where he was noticed by pioneering film producer Col. William N. Selig, who hired him to handle horses. He worked with Selig, writing, directing and acting, until 1917, when he signed with Fox to star in moving pictures alongside Tony.

Mix reached the height of his popularity during the 1920s, assuming the mantle of King of the Cowboys from William S. Hart, who retired from filming in 1925. But Mix did not adapt well to "talkies," and his career waned in the 1930s. His popularity remained intact, however, as he took his show on the road on the Western performance circuit. It was on the road that he would perish, when his 1937 Cord sent him to an untimely demise on Oct. 12, 1940, south of Florence, Ariz. Adding insult to injury and death, most of the 85 films he made with Fox were lost in a 1937 fire at the company's East Coast storage facility. But Mix was remembered fondly through his radio show and comic books, which outlived him by more than a decade.