Preserving Western History

Public historian Andrew Gulliford has compiled an important collectionof essays on a wide variety of topics focused in general on the preservation of regional history. While the backdrop is the American West, an area that lends itself to such a regional study, the examples contained in the essays are broad enough to provide interest to those from other areas as well. Using both new research and previously published papers, Gulliford has provided a college reader that celebrates both the West and the profession of public history.

The essays are timely, focused, provocative, and far-reaching. Topics reflect the broad scope of historic preservation and include archeology, material culture, ecotourism, cultural landscapes, heritage tourism, interpretation, and even the political correctness of public monuments. Among the essayists are several whose names will be familiar to Texas readers, including William Gwaltney, formerly associated with Fort Davis, who contributed "The Lunatic Fringe and Fringed Lunatics: Reenacting Western History in Buckskin," and Lonn Taylor, with past connections to Texas Christian University and the University of Texas, who wrote "New Mexican Chests: A Comparative Look." There are also essays by National Park Service chief historian Dwight T. Pitcaithley and former U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado. The scope of experiences and perspectives are as diverse as the topics themselves.

Of particular interest to students of Texana are three essays by Texas-based authors: Peter Dedek, Richard Francaviglia, and Art Gómez. Dedek, currently with Texas State University and formerly with the Texas Historical Commission, provided important contexts for understanding the need to preserve the diminishing vestiges of Route 66, the iconic mother road. His analysis places the road's history in the usual contexts of cultural landscapes and modern transportation, but also weaves in characters like Jack Kerouac and Fred Harvey, and brings the story up to date with recent historical survey information. Historian and geographer Francaviglia, who has written extensively on the environmental history of mining in Texas and the Southwest, contributed an essay on boomtowns and ghost towns, with special emphasis on the transgenerational landscapes of celebrated mining communities like Bodie, California, and Thurber, Texas, both now ghost towns. His work raises intriguing questions about the viability of interpretation against backdrops of selective preservation and historic imagery. Gómez, a historian with the National Park Service, challenges the reader on matters related to the process of memorialization by focusing on Chamizal National Memorial, but broadening the context to include the complexity of considerations as current as those surrounding the World Trade Center site in New York City.

Preserving Western History succeeds on several levels, but particularly in the stimulation of thought through the realm of public history and in the introduction of new perspectives on a regional sense of place. With diverse contributions from historians who obviously value the analytical strata of interpretation and historic preservation, and with the guidance provided by seasoned editor Gulliford, the book makes a significant contribution to the fields of public history and regional studies. Designed perhaps for students, it is a worthy read for others as well.