EiS Short: Four Corners

About this episode

The episode explores the significance and experience of visiting the Four Corners Monument.

The Four Corners Monument, marking the common corner of four southwestern states, can seem perverse and arbitrary, memorializing nothing more than 4 invisible lines coming to a point in desolate country. There is little to do: no rides, no museums, just a few booths selling food and trinkets and the monument itself, a metal disk encased in a massive wheel of imported granite. And yet we do come, by the thousands, driving hundreds of miles out of our way and paying three bucks to stand on the smooth bronze disk, tie our shoes in four states at once, have our picture taken and then… well, nothing; buy some fry bread, perhaps, and then get back in the car and drive to somewhere else. It resembles a pilgrimage, a Southwestern Hajj, a ritual journey to be completed at least once in every American's life.

Topics covered

• travel
• monuments
• cultural rituals
• geography
• pilgrimage

Keywords

• Four Corners Monument
• travel
• cultural pilgrimage
• Southwestern states
• geography
• tourism

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Four Corners Monument, four southwestern states, Southwestern Hajj

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