Sustainable Strategies in Colter’s 1932 Desert View Watchtower

When Mary Colter (1869 – 1958) designed the Desert View Watchtower at the Grand Canyon in the early 1930s, she integrated several sustainable features into the observatory and rest house. Although included for practical rather than environmental reasons, measures such as using locally extracted materials and salvaging demolition waste (see Reusing Materials: Colter’s 1932 Desert View Watchtower), using durable materials, moderating temperatures with thermal mass, and conserving water foreshadowed measures we consider sustainable today.

The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway began bringing travelers to Grand Canyon Village in 1901 and, with its hospitality partner Fred Harvey (Colter’s employer), offered dining, accommodation, and activities to visitors. In 1926, passengers arriving at the canyon in private automobiles outnumbered those arriving by train for the first time. The Desert View Watchtower was constructed near Grand Canyon National Park’s east entrance in part to serve visitors arriving by automobile.

Located some 25 miles from the railway depot and Grand Canyon Village, the remoteness of the site presented some challenges. Like many contractors working at Grand Canyon in this era, the Watchtower’s contractor S.C. Hichborn was based in Los Angeles, the nearest major city at some 500 miles distant. By contract, the railway agreed to provide free transportation for workers, tools, equipment, and materials via its western rail line. The contractor was responsible for unloading and hauling everything to the site.

Everything, that is, except water. Like the rest of the south rim, Desert View had no natural water source. The railway delivered tanker trucks of water to the site during the Watchtower’s construction. It continued to fill the Watchtower’s cistern after the building opened to the public. Waterless chemical toilets were installed in both the men’s and women’s rooms, offering significant water savings as compared to a flush toilet. In a move that was in no way environmentally friendly, wastewater from all sinks and the sewer line from the storage tank for the chemical toilets were piped ten feet outside the building and then expelled down the sloping side of the canyon.

Because the Santa Fe Railway was responsible for maintaining the building, using durable, low-maintenance materials made economic sense over the long-term. Masonry exterior walls and flagstone floors wear well. This practical selection of durable materials had the effect of eliminating the waste and energy otherwise used extracting and transporting replacement materials. The thermal mass of this stone also helps moderate temperature fluctuations inside the building, reducing the energy needed to condition the air.

Front of Desert View Watchtower, c. 1933. Fred Harvey/GRCA 15927.

At the Desert View Watchtower, materials, water, and energy conservation measures were implemented for practical, aesthetic, or economic reasons rather than sustainable ones. If building professionals in the 1930s like Mary E. J. Colter could reduce the environmental impact of buildings without even trying, then we should be able to do far more than we are today.

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Sources:

“Chief Engineer’s Construction Contracts,” Oct. 1, 1931, between S.C. Hichborn and the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company. GRCA 26548 Folder 16, Grand Canyon Museum Collection.

 “General Specifications of Labor and Material to be Furnished in the Erection and Completion of a Tower Building on site at Desert View, Grand Canyon for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company Coast Lines. Plans by Fred Harvey, Drawing No. CECL 176-19643,” Grand Canyon Museum Collection, GRCA 26548 Folder 16.

National Park Service, Grand Canyon Visitation 1915 to Present, January 13, 2005.