From 1923 to 1972, the Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railroad, brought visitors from around the world to the national parks and monuments of southwestern Utah and northern Arizona. Cedar City marketed itself as the Gateway to the National Parks and became the jumping off point for tour groups and hundreds of thousands of individual travelers seeking the area’s scenery. Operating as concessionaires in the parks, the company built, maintained, and staffed lodges, inns, cabins, restaurants, and the Hotel El Escalante in Cedar City. This work created much of the tourist infrastructure that still exists. Its Grand Circle Tour carried visitors, affectionately called dudes, by bus to Zion National Park, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, Cedar Breaks National Monument, and the Kaibab Forest. Union Pacific invested heavily in Cedar City and promoted the town as if it were one of its own holdings, emphasizing the region’s scenic splendor. Over nearly fifty years, the company employed more than 40,000 people, mostly young college students, and many Utahans who became ambassadors for the state’s natural wonders. The company’s history shows its importance in developing tourism in Utah during the early and mid-twentieth century.