BEND — The day after her high school graduation, Jean Drost and the other girls in the 1955 Water Pageant Court were invited to a film set outside of Bend to meet the Oscar-nominated leading man with the rugged good looks.

Kirk Douglas.

Douglas was starring in the Western movie “The Indian Fighter,” which was being filmed in a fictional fort built near Benham Falls.

Drost and the girls took several pictures with Douglas. She remembers the movie star being personable and asking them about the Water Pageant Court.

“That was our claim to fame,” Drost recalled recently. “Having a picture with Kirk Douglas.”

Douglas would go on to a long movie career starring in “Lust for Life” (1956) and “Spartacus” (1960). He returned to Central Oregon in 1966 to film “The Way West.”

Drost, now 82 and living in Gardnerville, Nevada, was reminded of that day with Douglas after news broke Wednesday of his death at 103.

“I remember it very vividly because it was such a big event for a young girl,” she said.

Douglas and his production company, Bryna Productions, chose Central Oregon as the location for “The Indian Fighter.”

The Bend Chamber of Commerce invested about $30,000 to build Fort Benham with the hope it would be used for future movies.

“Movie producers were looking for these big open spaces, and we still had big open spaces,” said Kelly Cannon-Miller, director of the Deschutes Historical Museum. “They scouted out around here and found the spot out by Fort Benham.”

Fort Benham was used in two other movies, “Oregon Passage” (1957) and “Tonka” (1958), and in episodes of the TV show “Have Gun Will Travel.”

But the fort did not draw any other cinematic attention, and the surrounding area was burned in 1962 from a campfire that got out of control. The fort was also vandalized and starting to weaken.

In 1963, the U.S. Forest Service decided to demolish the fort.

“The Forest Service at that point found it to be a hazard and that it was a danger,” Cannon-Miller said.

In the eight years it stood, the fort was a moneymaker for the region. It brought in more than $1 million to the local economy, according to the Bend Chamber of Commerce.

Having the fort and a movie star like Douglas coming to Bend brought a boost to the region during down years after the Shevlin-Hixon mill had closed, Cannon-Miller said.

“It’s still an economically shaky time period,” Cannon-Miller said. “It was a big deal for him to pick here.”

For longtime Bend resident Bill Boyd, filming at Fort Benham was a highlight of his childhood.

Boyd was an extra in the movie “Tonka,” along with other members of his high school marching band. They each earned about $10 a day.

“Tonka” was filmed three years after Kirk Douglas came to Bend for “The Indian Fighter.”

Boyd and other band members were asked to play music while on horseback. The problem was some of them had never been on a horse before, Boyd said.

“Chaos reigned,” Boyd said. “Horses were going every which direction and some were bucking. It was a general mess. I don’t know why they thought an untrained group was capable of doing cavalry maneuvers.”

The day the girls in Water Pageant Court met Douglas, they were also able to walk around the fort and watch some of the scenes be filmed.

Drost said she felt a part of the movie.

She enjoys rewatching “The Indian Fighter,” to bring back the memories of meeting Douglas and of her early life in Bend.

“All of us Bendites have to watch the movie,” she said. “I’ve watched reruns of it because I enjoy seeing the country.”