FROM: Park Perfect Published Daily
Perfect Frontierland Cigar Store Indian
Every Disney picture tells a Disney story, don't it, and today our perfect picture comes from Disney Lori, who went up close and personal for this smooth as silk shot of a relic from Disney's past: a cigar store Indian.
Park Perfect has become so popular that I've decided to feature a shot from a different photographer each day rather than devote an entire week to one photographer. You'll still see multiple shots from the same shooters, just not consecutively.
In today's far too 'correct' culture, it's probably poor manners to mention Cigar Store Indians. (Oops! Cigar Store Native Americans!) Many folks instantly assume a racist rationale for these wooden relics of our frontier past.
Not quite.
Quite a few residents of the Old West liked to smoke. But most of them couldn't read or write. So if you're just off the range and in a strange town with no more tobacco in your plug, what you are supposed to do? Keep an eye peeled for a big, fake Indian! Once you've found him, you've also found the place where you can fill up your plug and maybe indulge in a fine cee-gar, too.
(The same purpose was served by barber shop poles and other visual cues essential for an illiterate society.)
So it was a no-brainer for the Imagineers to put a Cigar Store Indian in front of what was then a Frontierland store that sold tobacco. It no longer sells tobacco, nor do any other locations in the Magic Kingdom, but why get rid of a perfectly good Cigar Store Indian just because of some pesky no smoking policy?
Luckily, Disney didn't, and the splendid fellow still takes up space on the porch outside Prairie Outpost & Supply, a candy and sweet shop.
(By the way, Disney World has two Cigar Store Indians: the one in Frontierland, and another on Main Street U.S.A., where it stood in front of the long-gone Tobacco Shop.)
Disney Lori captured perfectly the Indian's melancholy visage and the meticulous care taken by Disney to ensure not a single flaw in its paint or its poise.
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This perfect pic courtesy of Disney Lori, and used with her permission.
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