Gold's Fool and God's Country: The Coronado Craze of 1940–1941

1. For a more complete account of the Coronado Cuarto Centennial observances, see “History of the Coronado Celebrations,” in Hammond, George P., Coronach's Seven Cities (Albuquerque, N.M.: United States Coronado Exposition Commission, 1940), pp. 77–82.

2. The quote is taken from the pamphlet, “Tourist Guide for Kansas,” published by the Kansas Coronado Cuarto Centennial Commission (Lyons, Kans., 1941).

3. Sherman, Eddie, “Coronado Marches Again,” Journal of the National Education Association, 29, No. 5 (05 1940), 142–3.

4. “Kansas History in the Press,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 9, No. 3 (08 1940), 328.

5. Donoghue, David, “Coronado, Onate, and Quivira,” Mid-America: An Historical Review, 17, No. 2 (04 1936), 88–95. See also “Catholic First Things in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 8, No. 2 (05 1939), 208.

6. These references to the Coronado observance in Kansas are drawn from various newspaper clippings in a scrapbook compiled by Paul A. Jones, Chairman of the Kansas Coronado Cuarto Centennial Commission. I am grateful to Mrs. Paul A. Jones of Lyons, Kansas, for allowing me to use this scrapbook in my research.

7. Murdock, Victor, “Hosts of Kansans to Find Coronado Show Next Year to Top New Mexican Effort,” Wichita (Evening) Eagle, 7 10 1939.

8. Bailey, Roy F., “‘To the Stars Through Difficulties’: Accomplishments of Kansas Shown by Historical Markers,” Kansas Teacher, 50, No. 9 (05 1942), 28.

9. Bailey, , p. 28.

10. The words are those of Roy Bailey, but they are offered in explanation of Mrs. Ratner's strong support of the new proposal; see Bailey, , p. 28.

11. The debate over the site of Father Padilla's martyrdom is discussed in Fr. Angelico Chavez, O.F.M., Coronado's Friars (Washington, D.C.: n.p., 1968), pp. 85–6.

12. Jones, Paul A., Coronado and Quivira (Lyons, Kans.: The Lyons Publishing Co., 1937), p. 1.

13. See, for example, Marling, Karal Ann, “Of Cherry Trees and Ladies' Teas: Grant Wood Looks at Colonial America,” in The Colonial Revival in America, ed. Axelrod, Allen (New York: W. W. Norton, Winterthur Books, 1985), pp. 294–319.Marling, 's book George Washington Slept Here, forthcoming from Harvard University Press, also promises to be an invaluable treatment of this subject.

14. “The Great American Roadside,” Fortune, 10, No. 3 (09 1934) 53–63, 172, 174, 177. For a social history of auto tourism in the 1930s, see Belasco, Warren James, Americans on the Road: From Autocamp to Motel, 1910–1945 (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1979). For an insightful discussion of auto tourism in the Midwest during the 1930s, see Nash, Anedith, “Death on the Ridge Road: Grant Wood and Modernization in the Midwest,” Prospects: The Annual of American Cultural Studies, ed. Salzman, Jack, 8 (New York: Burt Franklin & Company, 1983), pp. 281–301.

15. Paul Jones, as quoted by Wellman, Paul I., “Admiral Paul Jones Brings Coronado Back to Kansas,” Kansas City Star, 18 05 1941, p. 12C.

16. Curry's decision to paint Coronado astride a Palomino aroused a great deal of controversy among Kansas horse breeders because the Palomino was not recognized as a legitimate breed until 1949. They were angered that the painting should depict Coronado mounted on “a scrub pony.” This controversy, and the Coronado phenomenon in general, are discussed at greater length in a book by this author; see Kendall, M. Sue, Rethinking Regionalism: John Steuart Curry and the Kansas Mural Controversy, volume 2 in the New Directions in American Art series (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986).

17. For an analysis of the evolution of heroes, horses, and costumes in Hollywood westerns, see Fenin, George N. and Everson, William K., The Western: From Silents to the Seventies, 2nd ed. (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1973), pp. 149–155, 193–225.