MONUMENT VALLEY

Probably no other location in the United States is more recognizable as the setting for Westerns than Monument Valley, a vast area sprawling across Utah and Arizona on the Navajo Reservation. The valley is known for its magnificent buttes and plateaus. The first Western filmed on this location is The Vanishing American (1925). John Ford made the valley his trademark location using it in Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), Wagon Master (1950), The Searchers (1956), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

See also DETERRITORIALIZATION.