Marketing the American West

American West Heritage Center

This is the website for the 'American West Heritage Center' located in Wellsville, Utah, which is advertised as a great outdoor living history museum and even just from looking at the website for the first time, it is easy to tell that it is based around marketing the American West, its slogan being 'Keeping The History Alive!'. The logo for this centre is a buffalo, immediately showing that it is closely connected with the history of the American West and Native American history also. 

There are many different aspects of the centre that are trying to give as an authentic feel as possible, all of which are things that are designed to attract tourism and market the American West, all at the same time as educating people about something that is considered a very important part of American history. These include the Native American Encampment, Mountain Man Camp and a Pioneer Settlement. The idea here is that customers have a tour of the different parts and have a real life experience of how people lived in the early United States, as well as before that, with Native American camps too. This centre is not just focused solely on the early pioneers and settlers of the US, but also informs people about the earlier history of the Native Americans, which is important as it is recognising, rather than ignoring, the significance, and sacrifice of the tribes, as the lands were being settled. 

The centre is located just outside of a small town, Wellsville, which is fairly rural. I think the location here is important as it means that people visiting the centre will have a fairly authentic experience, without the distractions of modern day technology. However, from the website alone, there is not enough information to give a proper image of what the centre is like, so from this alone it is hard to tell how historically accurate the American West Heritage Center is, though, notably, it does show a wider image of the west, rather than just the typical cowboy image, which is what most people immediately associate with the 'west'.