AA-2026-51B5F1
On the image
Somewhere in the Rocky Mountain West, a red Concord-style stagecoach sits horseless in the dirt while two children investigate it with the focused attention of people who have been told this is educational. Behind it, a small fleet of canvas-topped prairie schooners is parked in the grass against a green-roofed mountain lodge, the whole arrangement communicating that someone has assembled a fairly serious collection of nineteenth-century rolling stock for reasons the 1950s considered self-evident.
The postwar decade had decided that the frontier was the essential American story, and that children should encounter it in three dimensions wherever possible. Dude ranches, centennial pageants, and state-fair historical displays kept real and replica wagons in regular rotation, maintained with the solemn conviction that proximity to a stagecoach produced patriotism. The lodge behind the wagons, the dense conifer slope above it, and the mountain meadow setting suggest a summer tourist operation that had leaned hard into the theme.
The stagecoach itself is the star — painted red with cream-spoked wheels, luggage piled on the roof, tongue resting in the dirt waiting for horses that are not coming today. The child standing beside it is at the age where you still believe you might be allowed to drive it.
Visually related — by likeness
Western Frontier Pageant with Stagecoach and Covered Wagons, Rocky Mountains, 19. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-51B5F1. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/western-frontier-pageant-with-stagecoach-and-covered-wagons-rocky-mountains-19.
@misc{aaAA202651B5F1,
title = {Western Frontier Pageant with Stagecoach and Covered Wagons, Rocky Mountains, 19},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-51B5F1},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/western-frontier-pageant-with-stagecoach-and-covered-wagons-rocky-mountains-19}
}TY - ART TI - Western Frontier Pageant with Stagecoach and Covered Wagons, Rocky Mountains, 19 PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-51B5F1 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/western-frontier-pageant-with-stagecoach-and-covered-wagons-rocky-mountains-19 ER -
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