Changing places: Tourism and the fading coal heritage of four Rocky Mountain communities (Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico)

Many communities have been created to extract energy, mineral, timber and other natural resources. These types of towns clearly represent layers of investment and spatial divisions of labor, major forces in differentiating places and establishing place identities. When such towns survive the departure of the resource industry, their established identity and heritage begin to erode with time. Tourism is an economic alternative for many of these towns. It has been argued that tourism-dependence speeds up the erosion of hard-to-market local heritage. This research examines four former coal towns, two of which are now heavily involved in tourism, as case studies of the relationship between tourism, heritage and meaning of place. Communities were evaluated by the place identity themes expressed in the town landscape and in print and Web media, and by the degree to which residents had modified the historic coal-era buildings.; As predicted, one tourist town had less remaining identification with coal and more modification of its built heritage than was true in the non-tourist towns. The other tourist town departed from these expectations in several ways. Both tourist towns have taken defensive measures to maintain local control over the scale and nature of tourism. All four communities selectively drew from their heritage or physical surroundings for place meanings that filled economic and social needs today. Research also identified a number of key factors that influence tourism's impact on place identity and heritage. These factors provide several avenues for future research on former resource extraction communities and other obsolete landscapes of production.