Red Lodge and the mythic West
Subtitle: coal miners to cowboys
By: Bonnie Christensen.
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Lawrence
Language: eng
Number of pages: 312
Subjects: Frontier and pioneer life -- Montana -- Red Lodge.; Historic sites -- Montana -- Red Lodge.; Festivals -- Social aspects -- Montana -- Red Lodge.; Rodeos -- Social aspects -- Montana -- Red Lodge.; Memory -- Social aspects -- Montana -- Red Lodge.; Historic preservation -- Social aspects -- Montana -- Red Lodge.; Memory -- Social aspects -- West (U.S.); Historic preservation -- Social aspects -- West (U.S.); Red Lodge (Mont.) -- History.; Red Lodge (Mont.) -- Social life and customs.
Description: "Midway between Billings, Montana, and Yellowstone National Park, tourists encounter the quaint little town of Red Lodge. Here one may see cowboys, Indians, and mountain men roaming a downtown that's on the National Register of Historic Places, attend a rodeo on the 4th of July, or join in a celebration of immigrants during the annual "Festival of Nations." One would hardly guess that until recently Red Lodge was really a down-and-out coal-mining town or that it was populated mainly by white Americans."

"Tracing the story of Red Lodge from the 1880s to the present, Christensen tells how a mining town managed to endure the vagaries of the West's unpredictable extractive-industries economy. She connects Red Lodge to a myriad of larger events and historical forces to show how national and regional influences have contributed to the development of local identities, exploring how and why westerners first rejected and then embraced "western" images, and how ethnicity, wilderness, and historic preservation became part of the identity that defined one town."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 281-296) and index.
Table of contents: title: Western at the fringes : Red Lodge in the 1890s; title: Nothing up here but foreigners and coal slack : the industrial West; title: The end of an era; title: Everyone's a cowboy : the "wild West" in the twentieth century; title: Hardy pioneers, American and foreign : public ethnicity in the West; title: Nature's West; title: Preserving a past.