This diverse collection of essays had their foundation in a 1997 conference hosted by the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado, Boulder. This event brought together a range of academics, National Park Service (NPS) employees, commercial interests, and local residents to examine the forces shaping western tourism, both past and present. Subsequently those revised papers, selected for inclusion in this volume, were combined with commissioned essays and some pieces that had already been published to offer an interdisciplinary selection that is thought-provoking for historians and westerners alike. For historians the collection has significance beyond the regional debate about how western history should be written and appreciated. It points to new and potential developments for economic, business, and social historians, some of whom will need to put on new spectacles and adopt new techniques of analysis if they are to examine this important industry.