This beautiful reproduction poster has been re-mastered from the exquisite artwork on a 1930 advertising brochure created by renowned artist Maurice Loram, promoting the Southern Pacific Railroad’s service to Southern Arizona Guest Ranches.
The vibrant colors and detail of this classic image have been painstakingly brought back to life to preserve a great piece of history.
The high-resolution image is printed on heavy archival photo paper, on a large-format, professional giclée process printer. The poster is shipped in a rigid cardboard tube, and is ready for framing.
The 13"x19" format is an excellent image size that looks great as a stand-alone piece of art, or as a grouped visual statement. These posters require no cutting, trimming, or custom framing, and a wide variety of 13"x19" frames are readily available at your local craft or hobby retailer, and online.
A great vintage print for your home, shop, or business!
HISTORY OF GUEST (DUDE) RANCHES
This image created by renowned artist Maurice Lorum, comes from a 1930 Southern Pacific Railroad brochure. Lorum’s work provides an artist's eye-view of Southern Arizona, fancifully suggesting the almost infinite variety of life in the picturesque land of Enchanted Mesas. In this brochure, Southern Pacific claimed to be the only railroad that offered transcontinental main line trains direct to southern Arizona.
Guest ranches arose in response to the romanticization of the American West that began to occur in the late 19th century. In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner stated that the United States frontier was demographically "closed". This in turn led many people to have feelings of nostalgia for bygone days, but also, given that the risks of a true frontier were gone, allowed for nostalgia to be indulged in relative safety. Thus, the person referred to as a "tenderfoot" or a "greenhorn" by westerners was finally able to visit and enjoy the advantages of western life for a short period of time without needing to risk life and limb.
The Western adventures of famous figures, like Theodore Roosevelt, were made available to paying guests from cities of the East, called "dudes" in the West. In the early years, the transcontinental railroad network brought paying visitors to a local depot, where a wagon or buggy would be waiting to transport people to a ranch. Experiences varied as some guest ranch visitors expected a somewhat edited and more luxurious version of the "cowboy life", while others were more tolerant of the odors and timetable of a working ranch. While there were guest ranches prior to the 20th century, the trend grew considerably after the end of World War I, when postwar prosperity, the invention of the automobile and the appearance of Western movies all increased popular interest in the west. In 1926, the Dude Ranchers Association was founded in Cody, Wyoming, to represent the needs of this rapidly growing industry.
In the US, guest ranches are now a long-established tradition and continue to be a vacation destination. Depending on the climate, some guest ranches are open only in the summer or winter, while others offer year-round service. Some of the activities offered at many guest ranches include horseback riding, target shooting, cattle sorting, hayrides, campfire sing-alongs, hiking, camping, whitewater rafting, zip-lining, archery and fishing. College students are often recruited to work at guest ranches during the summer months. Common jobs offered to college students include: housekeeping, wrangler, dining staff, and office staff or babysitters. A number of working ranches have survived lean financial times by taking in paying guests for part of the year.
Below is a list of some of the dude ranches in operation in Arizona. Some of these ranches have changed names over the years, but many have been in operation since the heyday of dude ranching:
Cherry Creek Lodge
Circle Z Ranch
Elkhorn Ranch
Kay El Bar Ranch
Rancho de la Osa
Rancho de los Caballeros
Sprucedale Guest Ranch
Stagecoach Trails Guest Ranch
Tanque Verde Ranch
Tombstone Monument Ranch
White Stallion Ranch
