Great music and microbrews are often ends unto themselves.

At Saturday's Rhythm and Brews Festival and Benefit Concert at Corriganville Park, however, they'll be means to an end.

With six bands and nearly a dozen microbrew beer stands, the event sponsored by the Rotary Club of Simi Sunset is set to raise awareness and money for the Simi Valley park, while also providing family-friendly entertainment rooted in the park's rich film history.

"We're trying to raise enough money to build a new pavilion for Camp Rotary," said Donna Prenta, co-chairwoman of the Rotary Club Rock Concert.

Youth groups can camp at the site in Corriganville Park, but the grounds are rudimentary, with an amphitheater and fire pit. The Rotary Club wants to build a covered picnic area with a concrete foundation and barbecues for groups.

The festival also will benefit firefighters.

The club has donated 100 festival tickets to firefighters and will present a $5,000 check to the Ventura County Fallen Firefighters Memorial fund.

It's a fitting gesture, given that a good part of the park burned in 1970.

"That burnt about three-fourths of the town but left the big stable, some adobe buildings and the hotel on the east side of Silvertown," said Gregg Anderson, Corriganville historian.

The fire may have destroyed the ranch, but its history remains, which festival planners also intend to showcase.

"Up to the early '50s, 70 percent of all Westerns, or a portion thereof, were filmed at Corrigan Ranch," said Tom Corrigan, owner of Corrigan Steakhouse, which features memorabilia from the park.

Famous films made on the ranch include "Fort Apache," directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne, Shirley Temple and Henry Fonda.

Several Gene Autry movies also were shot there, including "Hills of Utah" and "Beyond the Purple Hills."

Corrigan's father, actor Ray "Crash" Corrigan, bought the land in 1937, nearly 2,000 acres that he developed into a location for movies and television.

In 1949, he opened it to the public as a Western-style amusement park.

In the early 1950s, the park was a popular destination.

"It became the first theme park in America," Corrigan said. "We had a rodeo and a Western show, kind of like what they do at Universal City now."

For aspiring stuntmen, the park was a potential career starter, said Stephen Smiley Burnette, a former stuntman for Universal and son of Autry sidekick Smiley Burnette.

"People would try to hone their skills to get into the business out there. They figured it was a good way to break in."

Saturday's festival will offer many family activities.

The Santa Susana Museum and Train Depot will display a diorama of the movie ranch.

"All of the buildings are what it would have looked like around 1961, its heyday," museum director Tom Bergh said.

Other activities include stagecoach rides, as well as hiking to see the movie sets' skeletal remains, which are marked with photos that show them before the fire.

Festivalgoers also can hire marshals dressed in old Western gear to haul cohorts off to an old movie-set jail, Prenta said.

The festival, the first event at Corriganville in 25 years, will provide a glimpse into what Corrigan, who was born on the ranch in 1944, simply knew as home.

Growing up watching movies made in his yard, Corrigan said, it was quite a life.

"I miss it as I look back on it."