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The Birth of Western Tourism

By DANIEL WEISS

March/April 2021

Harrison Tourists Car Bumper TreeThe rise of tourism on Palomar Mountain took place at a time when Americans were discovering the allure of wilderness outings, particularly in the West. “There’s this irony that as soon as the California government was able to annihilate the Indigenous population and steal most of their land—right at that moment—there was this romance of the vanishing Indian and this attempt to try to reclaim an experience of rugged naturalism,” says San Diego State University archaeologist Seth Mallios. With the introduction of the Ford Model T in 1908, Palomar became a magnet for early car enthusiasts. “This is all part of the new frontier for where the automobile can take you,” says Mallios. “Many people had never been on a ride like this before, and many of the automobiles didn’t make it up. Others had to back up the mountain, and others burned out their brakes and went out of control down the mountain. Some of my favorite photos are of these old cars with trees tied to their bumpers to help them slow down on the way back down.”

 

Even before the wide availability of cars, tourists scaled the mountain in horse-drawn carriages, attracted at least in part by the hospitality of Nathan Harrison, a formerly enslaved man who lived two-thirds of the way up the slope and was legendary for his folksy tall tales of life in the backcountry. To Ryan Anderson, an anthropologist at Santa Clara University, there is something sinister to the dynamic between Harrison and his white audience. Anderson notes that a number of tourist attractions of the time involved “exotic” individuals put on display. These include Ota Benga, a Mbuti man who was kidnapped from the Belgian Congo in 1904 and later exhibited in New York City’s Bronx Zoo, and Ishi, a Yahi man showcased at a museum in San Francisco starting in 1911, where he was advertised as “the last wild Indian in California.” “These displays are rooted in a lot of racism, imperialism, condescension, and sort of gawking exotification,” says Anderson. “Harrison fits right in there, but at the same time his case is kind of unique.” While Ota Benga and Ishi had little to no choice in being exhibited, Harrison opted to engage with tourists and cultivated a persona that would appeal to them.