Culture
Route 66 runs through Gallup, and the town's name is mentioned in the lyrics to the song, "Route 66". In 2003, the U.S. and New Mexico Departments of Transportation renumbered US Highway 666, the city's other major highway, as Route 491, since the number "666" is associated with Satan and Devil worship, and thus it was considered offensive to some people.
The historic El Rancho Hotel & Motel has hosted a numerous array of movie stars including John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, Humphrey Bogart, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Kirk Douglas, Doris Day, Gregory Peck and Burt Lancaster. The rugged terrain surrounding Gallup was popular with Hollywood filmmakers during the 1940s and 1950s for the on-location shooting of Westerns. Actors and film crews would stay at the hotel during filming. Films made in Gallup included Billy the Kid (1930), Pursued (1947), The Sea of Grass (1947), Four Faces West (1948), Only the Valiant (1951), Ace in the Hole (1951), Escape from Fort Bravo (1953), A Distant Trumpet (1964) and The Hallelujah Trail (1965).
Gallup is sometimes called the "Indian Capital of the World", for its location in the heart of Native American lands, and the presence of Navajo, Zuni, Hopi and other tribes. One-third of the city's population has Native American roots. Gallup's nickname references the huge impact of the Native American cultures found in and around Gallup. However, the city is criticized in the novel Ceremony, authored by the Native American writer Leslie Marmon Silko, for the city's slums.
Gallup was the setting as the center of activity in a 2006 Sci Fi Channel mini-series The Lost Room, starring Peter Krause. Akon filmed a music video in Gallup in 2005. In 1994, parts of the movie Natural Born Killers were filmed in the city.
Read more about this topic: Gallup, New Mexico
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“Our culture has become something that is completely and utterly in love with its parent. It’s become a notion of boredom that is bought and sold, where nothing will happen except that people will become more and more terrified of tomorrow, because the new continues to look old, and the old will always look cute.”
—Malcolm McLaren (b. 1946)
“The genius of American culture and its integrity comes from fidelity to the light. Plain as day, we say. Happy as the day is long. Early to bed, early to rise. American virtues are daylight virtues: honesty, integrity, plain speech. We say yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no, and all else comes from the evil one. America presumes innocence and even the right to happiness.”
—Richard Rodriguez (b. 1944)