MONUMENT VALLEY: THE GOULDINGS

If you were a newlywed, would you spend two-and-a-half years in a tent on the desert frontier...with your only contact being the local Navajo that came calling?

This couple did.  They are real American pioneers of the twentieth century and this is their story.

Harry Goulding was a rugged cowboy and the son of a sheep herder from Silverton, CO.  He had seen Monument Valley where the buttes jutted straight up to the sky and he fell headlong in love with that country.

He was also in love with this lovely lady named Leone (whose name he couldn't spell, so he just renamed her "Mike").  The best thing about Mike was that she bought into his dream of living in Monument Valley.  They married in 1923; she was 12 days past her 18th birthday and he was 26.

They put big tires on their 1922 soft-top Buick (because the roads were not paved), took their Graham Brothers ton-and-a-half truck (Graham Brothers was later bought by Dodge), and headed overland for the Arizona/Utah border.

Their land was an outparcel which had belonged to the Paiute Indians.  It went up for sale when the government traded the Paiutes more "farmable" land to the north.  So the Gouldings were able to buy one square mile of land ($320 for 640 acres) which lay next to the huge 29,816 acre Navajo reservation.

They pitched their tent 180 miles from the nearest railroad station, learned the Navajo language, and began trading with the Indians.  It wasn't exactly "cash and carry".  The Navajo traded handmade rugs and blankets and jewelry for coffee, sugar, and flour.  The Goulding's other source of income was raising cattle and sheep.

Every fall, Harry would take cattle and sheep out of Monument Valley to the railroad station in Farmington, NM.  It was a 38 day trip and he would take several Navajo with him.  Sometimes he also took them with him to Durango to stock up on flour and staples.  The Navajo called Harry "Tall Sheep".

Once the Navajo asked the Gouldings when they were going to leave the valley.  Harry said "not until my hair turns the white of that tent over there".

This is the trading post Harry and Mike built and lived above.  The view out that balcony across the street to the reservation is not too shabby.

When they had been married 15 years, drought teamed up with the Depression and lamb/wool prices plummeted.  The Gouldings were down to their last $60 and the Indians were starving before Harry got a bright idea.  He thought Hollywood would be interested in Monument Valley for making movies.

In 1938, he and Mike got in the car with their remaining dollars and a portfolio of 8x10 black-and-white pictures of the valley.  They stayed with Mike's brother in Hollywood, who thought they were crazy to think they could "get in" at the studios without an appointment.

A secretary at United Artists turned Harry down as predicted.  He pulled out a bedroll and told them he wasn't leaving until someone looked at his pictures.  Security was called, but before they arrived the location manager for John Ford's next movie (STAGECOACH) happened to walk by. The next thing Harry knew, he was pitching his valley to John Ford.

Within weeks the whole cast/crew of STAGECOACH (over 100 people) showed up in Monument Valley.  John Ford stayed in the Goulding's spare room and John Wayne stayed in a tent.  There was no indoor plumbing.  

Hundreds of Navajo were recruited as extras and Harry got them Union wage ($5 a day/$8 if on horseback).  He was a good negotiator with the Indians since he spoke their language and could explain what John Ford wanted in a scene.  

There was a Navajo medicine man who was supposedly good at delivering the weather that they needed for shooting, so he was hired as an official consultant.  One day he fell in disfavor when the weather wasn't as predicted.  Leaving he was heard to mumble his radio was broken that day and he couldn't listen to the forecast.

For years afterward, film crews came and provided more and more jobs.  Tourists began coming to the valley and it helped the economy.

The Gouldings opened a lodge and ranch in the 50's in addition to their trading post.  They stayed until Harry retired at 65 and they moved to Page, AZ, returning often for visits.  After Harry died in 1981, Mike was kindly invited by the family who bought Goulding's to come back and live there until her death in 1992.  

The trading post is now a museum, but the personal items belonging to the Gouldings are all upstairs, just as they were.  There are pictures on all the walls of the Gouldings with famous people (Harry, Mike, and Barry Goldwater...Harry, Mike, and all the actors).  The furniture is the same and all of Mike's beautiful Indian jewelry is on display.

Harry and Mike Goulding were such interesting people.  His need to get away from civilization seemed in direct conflict with promoting valley tourism.  Perhaps he was pragmatic and determined to make things work.  Certainly Harry picked the right mate who could also enjoy that solitary, independent life.  The Gouldings did not have children.

Someone wrote about Harry Goulding: "Harry believed that someday people from all over the world would be visiting Monument Valley to see its wonders.  And when they came, he wanted to be there to show it to them."  Harry was right; half a million people come to Monument Valley yearly.