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

The Covered Wagon -- Fording the River and The Buffalo Hunt -- April 29, 2023

Motion Picture News, 14-April-1923

George N Fenin and William K Everson in their book The Western: from Silents to Cinerama said that The Covered Wagon, directed by James Cruze, may have been the first epic western. Jesse Lasky gave Cruze liberty to shoot on location and spend money. Paramount promoted the film heavily, as we see in this two-page ad with color, which is number 4 of a series.

Tim McCoy, who served as a technical adviser, remembered that many families had answered the call for covered wagons by bringing the ones their families had used to go west less than 70 years before. McCoy said that whole families came and treated the shoot like a camping trip and a picnic. 

Motion Picture News,
 28-April-1923

The buffalo hunt was shot on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. Some animals, then very endangered, were hurt or killed.

Motion Picture News, 28-April-1923

The movie opened to good business on the West Coast. 

The Covered Wagon -- The Indian Attack -- March 30, 2023

Motion Picture News, 17-March-1923

George N Fenin and William K Everson in their book The Western: from Silents to Cinerama said that The Covered Wagon, directed by James Cruze, may have been the first epic western. Jesse Lasky gave Cruze liberty to shoot on location and spend money. Paramount promoted the film heavily, as we see in this two-page ad with color, which is number 2 of a series.

Future western star Colonel Tim McCoy translated for the native American members of the cast. 

The Covered Wagon is the Most Colossal Achievement in All Motion Picture History -- February 26, 2023

 

Motion Picture News, 24-February-1923

George N Fenin and William K Everson in their book The Western: from Silents to Cinerama said that The Covered Wagon, directed by James Cruze, may have been the first epic western. Jesse Lasky gave Cruze liberty to shoot on location and spend money. Paramount promoted the film heavily, as we see in this two-page ad with color.

We have seen James Cruze as an actor in a large number of films for Thanhouser. 

Motion Picture News, 20-January-1923

"Facts About the Bigness of 'The Covered Wagon.'" It was Big:

• 3,000 actors spent three months on location, eighty miles from a railroad.
  
• Nine states were searched for locations.
  
• 1,000 Indians were brought from reservations hundreds of miles away, with their horses, tepees, and complete equipment.
  
• Eight truckloads of supplies a day had to be taken over the rough desert roads.
  
• Three hundred wagons were built. 40,000 square feet of canvas used to cover them.
  
• 100 oxen broken to the yoke.
  
• 3,000 costumes of the period made.
  
• Water backed up three miles for river scene ; dam broke and flooded camp, tearing down tents.
  
• 500 horses brought from Oregon for buffalo hunt scenes, which required particularly strong animals. 500 ordinaty horses also used.
  
• 500 buflaloes used in the hunt; the only large herd in existence.
  
• Nine square rniles of territory burned up for prairie fire scene.
  
• Seventy trees felled and transported eighty miles for building of ferries.
  
• Sixty wagons hauled material daily for six weeks to build replica of Fort Bridger.
  
• Mile-wide river forded by 300 wagons; men and animals had to swim; this was really dangerous, as bottom was quicksand.
  
• Every department of studio represented on location : wardrobe, property, scenario, publicity, film laboratory, construction, bookkeeping, auditing, stenographic and doctor's ofIice.
  
• Electric light plant built and light supplied to all tents.
  
• Complete commissary department employing several hundred fed the crowds. Mess tent held 1,000 at a time.
  

Motion Picture News, 13-January-1923

"A fortune has been spent in making this picture."

Motion Picture News, 06-January-1923

Colonel Tim McCoy 125 -- April 10, 2016

www.listal.com

Happy 125th birthday to western star Colonel Tim McCoy.  He was born in Michigan on 10-April-1891.  He became a rancher in Wyoming and got to know the Native American tribes, treating them with respect.  They taught him to talk sign.

He served in the US Army during World War One.  After the war, he became Adjutant General of the Wyoming National Guard.  He served in the Army again during World War Two.

He got involved in movies by serving as a consultant on the silent epic The Covered Wagon.   He starred in a series of silent features for MGM.  When talkies came, he worked for Columbia and lesser studios.  After the war, he performed on an early television show, teaching children about western history.

I own a copy of his memoirs, Tim McCoy Remembers the West. He spoke very respectfully of the Native Americans he knew and worked with.  He reminds me a lot of a couple of my uncles, what they used to call a straight arrow.  

Moving Picture Magazine, August, 1928