Red Lodge and the mythic West

by Bonnie Christensen

"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 histori