SELLING THE AMERICAN WEST

February/March 2005 - UNLV School of Architecture
April 2005 - Boulder Dam Hotel, Boulder City, Nevada
June/July 2005 - ISTS Boxcar, Fairfield, Iowa

SELLING THE AMERICAN WEST
Advertisements for the AT&SF Railroad and the Fred Harvey Company

"Modern advertising would not have been possible if the railroads
had not spread like arteries into every section of America,
transforming deserts and prairies into towns and cities,
creating a single market out of ten thousand isolations."
- Westvaco Ad, 1929

"Once pillaged for its raw materials, the American
West is now looted for its landscapes and historical auras.
Giant resorts and gaming corporations are rapidly transforming
the canonical frontier into a neon theme park, pockmarked
with casinos, prisons, trophy homes, and urban slums.
Tourism is the price of the land's very soul."
- Mike Davis

Visit this colorful collection of advertisements for the
Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad and the Fred Harvey Company,
from the late 1890s through the late 1950s, as they expanded their
tourism operations into the far corners of the American West.

To schedule a guided tour, group visit or class field trip
call (678) 488 5062 or email boxcar@ISTS.org