Before most Americans had ever seen a pueblo, the Fred Harvey Company sold them one.
In 1926 — the same year Route 66 was born — Harvey launched the Indian Detour, a fleet of chauffeured touring cars that carried railroad passengers off the train and out into the New Mexico back-country for one, two, or three days at a time. From the company’s grand La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe, the big Cadillacs and Packards, badged as “Harveycars,” rolled toward Acoma, Taos, and the ancient cliff dwellings, promising the modern traveler an intimate glimpse of a world that felt impossibly old.
The tours had a distinctive signature: their guides. Where the Harvey Houses had their waitresses, the Detours had the Couriers — college-educated young women, trained for months in archaeology and history, who dressed in a stylized “Navajo” costume of concho belts and squash-blossom necklaces and narrated the landscape for their “dudes.”
It was a brilliant piece of marketing, and a complicated one. Critics then and now have noted how neatly it packaged living peoples into a scenic attraction. Yet the same tours built the first national market for Southwest Native art, sending collectors home hungry for the pottery of makers like Maria Martinez — and helping turn Pueblo craft into one of the most celebrated traditions in American art.
The Detour sold a fantasy of the Southwest. Almost by accident, it also helped the real thing endure.
We are offering licences for ROUTE 66® Beer in specific territories. An invitation to others to become part of this story. To carry a piece of the road with them and to contribute to the story. We will share a percentage of royalties with Route 66 associations to keep the story alive.
The journey continues. This story is brought to you by ROUTE 66® BEER. Find us at ROUTE66BEER.COM
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