The Iron Horse -- As Big as America Itself! -- March 14, 2025

Los Angeles Evening Express, 14-March-1925

Sid Grauman's Egyptian Theater, which is still open on Hollywood Boulevard, featured John Ford's The Iron Horse, which told the epic story of the building of the transcontinental railroad. 

There was a plethora of special objects and events going on all around and in the theater. In the forecourt, displays included the CP Huntington, Central Pacific Locomotive Number 1, which is beautifully displayed at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. There was also a stagecoach, a replica of Lincoln's log cabin, presumably his birthplace, and teepees erected by Arapahoe and Shoshone native Americans. 

Inside the theater, an elaborate prologue, a stage presentation, included Colonel Tim McCoy, "world's greatest authority on American Indians," who later became a movie star, an overture by the Grauman's Egyptian Orchestra, 30 members of the Arapahoe and Shoshone tribes, including "chiefs, squaws, papooses" performing "war dances" (excuse the racism), tableaux, a reenactment of the Golden Spike ceremony, a cast of 200 singers and dancers and an "Awe-inspiring surprise finish -- a thrill you will never forget during your life." 

Los Angeles Times, 22-March-1925

This article about Tim McCoy makes him sound condescending towards the Native Americans, but if  you read his memoir, Tim McCoy Remembers the West, you will see that he spoke very respectfully of the Native Americans he knew and worked with. "As Big as America Itself!"

Los Angeles Daily News, 29-March-1925