MovieChat Forums > Stagecoach (1966) Discussion > geography

geography

posted 7 years ago by MAGolding (1240)
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Stagecoach 1966 seems to have typical inaccurate movie geography. The driver says he makes the trips back and fourth from Deadwood to Cheyenne.

According to the maps Deadwood, South Dakota is about 160 miles from Cheyenne, Wyoming, as the crow flies and not as the trail winds. I think that would be too long a distance to travel in the time of the story. And Mrs. Mallory is already in the coach when it arrives in the town where the other passengers get in to go to Cheyenne. Therefore the town at the beginning can not be Deadwood, South Dakota but somewhere between Deadwood and Cheyenne, Wyoming.

(10-29-2017 . Seeing the movie again recently, I think the banker said they got on at Dry Fork. There is a Dry Fork Mine in Gillette, Wyoming, but that looks too far out of the way to be on a stage line from Deadwood to Cheyenne.)

At the first stage stop when they discuss going on to Cheyenne Ringo says it is less than 30 miles to Cheyenne, and I think Doc Boone says that the long trip back (to the fictional Dry Fork) would be too dangerous for Mr. Peacock's health, implying that the they are more than halfway from the original town (the fictional Dry Fork) to Cheyenne.

So I guess that the original town (the fictional Dry Fork) should be about 60 to 80 miles north of Cheyenne, Wyoming. Since Captain Mallory tells a soldier to take the two dead soldiers back to "the fort" from the original town (the fictional Dry Fork), the original town (the fictional Dry Fork) could be near Fort Laramie and probably about 60 to 80 miles north of Cheyenne.

This is working fine so far. but what is Mrs. Mallory doing coming south from the direction of Deadwood trying to reach her husband stationed in southern Wyoming, possibly at Fort Laramie?

Did she say she came from her home in the east? If so she should taken the Union Pacific railroad from her home and got off at a station in southeastern Wyoming, like Cheyenne, and taken a stagecoach north to Fort Laramie.

So maybe Captain Mallory was stationed at Camp Sturgis, established in August 1876 in the Black Hills of South Dakota, or Fort Meade that replaced it in 1878. Maybe Mallory's unit was reassigned to Fort Laramie or somewhere near and he rode away with it, and Mrs. Mallory stayed to pack up their things and have them shipped by a freighting company and then rode to Deadwood and got on the southbound stage there, hoping to get off when she reached her husband's position.

So this makes a bit of sense. But most of it is my interpretation of what is said to make it as plausible as possible. Anyone who is halfway cynical will wonder if the creators of the movie visualized the geography that realistically.

Anyway, I wonder what natives of southeastern Wyoming think of the landscapes seen in Stagecoach 1966 that was filmed in Colorado. It is probably more mountainous than that part of Wyoming.

[–] Wuchak (8857) 6 years ago

Old Westerns are notorious for butchering real-life geography. Even when they get the towns and distances right, the topography will be totally off. For instance, in "Red River" (1948) the Arizona shooting locations are disingenuous seeing as how Arizona looks nothing like the geography of the actual Chisholm Trail in Central/East Texas and the plains of Central Oklahoma & Kansas.

The horrible "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964) is another example: John Ford shot the picture entirely in his beloved Monument Valley and surrounding areas in Arizona. Evidently Ford thought we're all doofuses and no one would notice that the desert Southwest looks absolutely nothing like the Great Plains where the exodus actually took place. Imagine a movie taking place in the northern Appalachians, but shooting it in the swamps of Louisiana; it's the same gross contrast.

I'm not suggesting, by the way, that films based on factual events always have to be shot at the actual locations, but shouldn't the locations at least remotely resemble the real-life locations? For instance, although the story of "Cold Mountain" (2003) takes place in North Carolina and Virginia parts of it were shot in Romania, but it was okay because the geography and climate is the same. Or take 1953's "War Arrow," which took place in West Texas, but was shot in California; it worked out because the CA locations were an acceptable substitute for West Texas (not great, but at least acceptable).

"Stagecoach" (1966) was shot in the high country of Colorado, so maybe the best way to enjoy the picture is to view 'Deadwood' as a fictitious town in the high country of the Rockies.

But I like your attempt to make the geography plausible. Let's say your explanation is accurate, which mountains are depicted in the movie? The Black Hills?

[–] MAGolding (1240) 6 years ago

My first guess might be that the mountains would be the famous Imaginary Range that zigzags all over the west, from place to place that filmmakers find it convenient to put mountains.

I just used an online program to find the travel distance between Deadwood, South Dakota and Cheyenne, Wyoming. It is 273.8 miles by US-85 South, or 281.2 miles by US-85 South and I-25 South, or 350.2 miles by I-90 West, Wyoming-59 South, and I-25 South.

I-25 goes miles to the west of US-85, and closer to a range of mountains or hills in southeastern Wyoming. But the stage would have to go even west of I-25 to go though them. Fortunately Deadwood is near the northern edge of the Black Hills so even if Dry Fork is southwest of Deadwood the stage could go through part of the Black Hills. But that is pretty far from Cheyenne.

US-85 seems to curve east around a line of hills or something west of La Grange, maybe in the movie the stage line goes straighter through the hills for more dramatic scenery. La Grange, Wyoming is 57.3 miles from Cheyenne by US-85, so that would put the passing through the mountains at closer to the right time in the story, though the moviemakers would probably still be "making mountains out of molehills".

Then Dry Fork could be somewhere near Torrington or Lingle, places that are close to Fort Laramie where Captain Mallory could be stationed.

Or Dry Fork could be somewhere west of Fort Laramie, possibly near Guernsey, or farther west where US-26 meets I-25. Then the route south from there along what is now I-25 passes close to hills. I-25 bends east to avoid hills or mountains, and maybe in the movie the stage route bent west to take a pass through them. Probably the movie makers would also be "making mountains out of molehills" there.

Continued.

[–] MAGolding (1240) 6 years ago

Continued.

Or possibly your suggestion that the movie's Deadwood and/or Cheyenne might be different from the famous Deadwood, South Dakota and Cheyenne, Wyoming, is correct.

The snow on the ground in some scenes in Dry Fork indicates that it was more likely to be in the northern plains than the southern planes.

There are several Deadwoods in California, Deadwood, Oregon, Deadwood Texas, and Deadwood Draw, Nebraska. Deadwood Draw was near Sidney, Nebraska, and was part of the route from Sidney, a station on the Union Pacific Railroad, to the Black Hills, including Deadwood. So I guess stages from Sidney might pass through Deadwood Draw for several years on the way to the Black Hills.

But Cheyenne, Wyoming is also a station on the Union Pacific railroad so nobody would ever take a stage from Deadwood Draw to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

If your suggestion that the stage travels through high mountains in Colorado is correct, Cheyenne, Wyoming could still be the destination. Dry Fork could be about where Coalmont, Colorado is, which is 130.3 miles from Cheyenne via Wyoming-230 East and I-80 East. The route travels along flattish land from Coalmont through Walden and Cowdrey, and then through the Medicine Bow Mountains through Wyocolo and Foxpark to Woods Landing-Jelm, then on Wyoming-230 East northeast through flatter ground to to Laramie, Wyoming (which is not near Fort Laramie) and then by I-80 and/or Wyoming-210 through more hills to Cheyenne.

I note that Denver is east of the mountains and almost due south of Cheyenne on I-25. If a fictional Deadwood, Colorado, was east of the mountains and anywhere near Denver the stage would be called the Denver to Cheyenne Stage. And that would mean that the route wouldn't cross the mountains.

Continued.

[–] MAGolding (1240) 6 years ago

Continued.

Perhaps fictional Deadwood could be close to Walden, and Dry Gulch southeast of that. The stage route could pass through relatively flat land for a while and enter the mountains near Gould. It could follow Colorado-14 through Willey Lumber Camp, Spencer Heights, Kinikinik, Rustic, Stove Praine Landing, and exit the mountains near La Porte, then go through Fort Collins and Arrowhead and turn north on I-25 to Cheyenne. It would pass through some hills near the Colorado-Wyoming border near Cheyenne.

I note that the Indian Peaks Wilderness where some scenes in Stagecoach (1966) were filmed is about twenty to sixty miles south of those two selected routes through the mountains in Colorado. The Caribou Country Club Ranch in Nederland, Colorado, where other scenes were filmed, seems to be a little south of the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

I have to wonder how much or how little difference 20 to 60 miles distance makes in the type of scenery in the mountain in Colorado. How much would a reasonable route through the mountains resemble the scenery in the movie?

If both the Deadwood and the Cheyenne in Stagecoach (1966) are fictional, then they would have to be somewhere with flattish lands and high mountains between them, and within the area that the Cheyenne Indians lived in and/or raided and places would be named after them, and somewhere where Sioux under Crazy Horse could attack.