The Welcome back, everyone to 1001 heroes, Legends, Histories, and Mysteries podcast.

This is your host, John Haggardorn.

And saddle up, because we're headed to one of the most photographed places on Earth,

Monument Valley, which covers about 92,000 acres along the border of Arizona and Utah,

enough for any movie crew to get lost in,

and a paradise for tourists with an eye for natural beauty. Monument Valley is filled with a reddish sand floor and dozens of red rock formations and sandstone towers which represent the eroded

remains of a sea floor, where sediments and sandstone

were built up millions of years ago, and then eroded as the sea disappeared. Most people who have

seen it in person or on film see it as a visual icon of the American Southwest, but some see it as a

moonscape, or a Mars escape, and some see it as

an HP Lovecraft sci-fi illustration, with its spires and formations. It is different.

The Anasazi Indians were the first to settle the area around 1,200 BCE, and it is managed by the Navajo Indians

today. You can travel part of it on Route 163, or venture off the path on horseback, or car with the

Navajo guide. But before you do, you need to listen to this episode to get the story of how

Monument Valley became famous through

western movies and the story of the husband-wife couple who helped to make it a movie-making

destination in the first place, changing it from a Great Depression dust hole to a thriving

trading post and desired location for films such as stagecoach, the searchers, Rio Bravo, and literally hundreds

of others in the past 85 years.

Monument Valley hasn't always been famous, which left me to wonder just how it got its name

and recognition.

It's actually a pretty good story, and it all started with a couple named Golding.

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