“No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America’s creation of the West.”
David H. Murdock, “The American West” (2001)
The more I look at murals, the more I realize that they do not exist in a vacuum, and that they often reveal a close affinity to the specific place in which they appear. But the murals that I found while traveling out west seemed somewhat different from those I observed in urban settings. They seemed more closely connected to the collective experiences and memories of the western migration, rather than to the specifics involving the historical record. In fact, iterations of similar images, alluding to events or artifacts of that earlier era, grace the walls of many a town in the Old West, regardless of geographical proximity or historical accuracy. In the pages that follow, I focus on two conjoined themes: the past as revealed in the remnants of an earlier era, and as reconceived in the murals.
The vestiges of the past are hard to miss. Ghost towns, decaying hotels and cabins, picturesque saloons, abandoned gas pumps, and weathering gravestones punctuate a landscape that is often remote and off the beaten track. They remain as static monuments to the settling of the west — timeworn relics of the struggle, and the human cost paid by those who sought to survive and flourish in a vast, unfamiliar, and often-hostile terrain.
The murals, on the other hand, are almost generic in nature. They celebrate the legendary transformation of the wilderness by those who ventured west, and romanticize and magnify the heroism of these early beginnings. They take pride in the accomplishments of the early settlers, and pay tribute to their efforts by conjuring up idealized visions, devoid of the hardship and toil that defined the early settlements. Instead, they emphasize economic and occupational success: the rewards of raising cattle, herding sheep, and tilling the soil. And, most importantly, they proclaim the ability to overcome distance and isolation, and resolutely move forward.
Today, both the artifacts of the past and the murals are maintained to a large extent in the service of commerce and tourism. It is no wonder, then, that the open road, and all means of transport, remain central to the narrative of the Old West, be it in the relics that were left behind, or in the murals that recall the epic transformation of a bygone time.
The images that follow, are presented in two separate chapters: