The Taos Society of Artists and the AT&SF Railway

The Taos Society of Artists was founded in 1915 to promote the work of artists (left to right) J.H. Sharp, E.L. Blumenschein, W.H. Dunton, E. I. Couse, B.G., Phillips, and O.E. Berninghaus. The AT&SF Railway used the paintings of some of these artists in their promotional calendars and brochures for the Indian Detours. Click on the photograph for more information.

 This painting by E.I. Couse, a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, appeared on the AT&SF Railway calendar for 1959. The Railway used Couse paintings on its calendars for 35 years, beginning in 1924. This painting was titled "The Turquoise Maker."

The AT&SF Railway and Fred Harvey Company used images of Native Americans extensively in their advertising brochures, calendars, restaurant menu covers, matchbook covers, and playing card images. This photograph shows one of the first ads for the Indian Detours, featuring a native boy playing a drum.

AT&SF Railway timetable brochures promoted the Indian Detours with images of Native Americans standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. 

Brochures for the Indian Detours also relied heavily on images of the incredible natural landscape features of the Southwest. This rock formation could possibly be in Canyon de Chelly. Note the Harveycars on the road, and two natives standing on the lower left, with a pueblo on the lower right. 

This Indian Detours brochure is a fascinating mélange of landscape imagery, as well as all the other features of an Indian Detour- the AT&SF Railway logo, the thunderbird logo of the Fred Harvey Company, which was painted on the side of the Harveycars, the mountain which could be Taos Mountain with a pueblo at its base, the Indian observing it all, and smoke coming from a train in the distance.