The number of visitors to Grand Canyon National Park nearly quintupled in the park’s first ten years since its 1919 founding, and visitor amenities had not kept pace. The National Park Service was eager for its concessionaire to replace the old Bright Angel Hotel operated by Fred Harvey in Grand Canyon Village. Park superintendent Minor Tillotson wrote, “The old cabins and dining room are inadequate as to capacity and obsolete as to the class of accommodation that should be provided to a park visitor.”
Although Tillotson said he had unofficial word from concessionaire Fred Harvey that a new hotel was in the 1930 construction budget, the new Bright Angel Lodge was not constructed for five more years, likely owing to the impacts of the Great Depression. During this time, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway architect W. H. Mohr designed a Swiss Chateau style building (similar to the nearby hotel El Tovar) for the site now occupied by the Bright Angel Lodge. The Santa Fe Railway’ was involved since it owned the building site and would own the new hotel, which would be operated by Fred Harvey.
Aerial view of Bright Angel Lodge, c. 1936 (NPS / GRCA 09538).
Fred Harvey architect and interior designer Mary E. J. Colter (1869 – 1959) did not approve of this stylistic choice. She was known for masterfully integrating her Grand Canyon buildings, including two rim-side rest houses, with their sites. Mohr’s European-inspired design did not meet Colter’s standards. Instead, she designed the site-specific lodge and cabins that recalled the region’s recent history.
Canyon side of Bright Angel Lodge, 1936 (NPS / GRCA 0837).
Instead of one large building, Colter designed the Bright Angel Lodge and Cabins in the Grand Canyon Village as an informal, rustic village. The main lodge included the lobby, shops, restaurant, kitchen, and offices. The lodge was connected by covered walkways to seven guesthouses. There were also fifteen free-standing cabins of one to four units each and several small utility buildings. The cabins varied in size and amenities to accommodate guests of different means. Construction began in 1935 with one contractor for the main lodge building and another for the cabins and other smaller structures.
South facing row of Bright Angel Lodge cabins, 1936 (NPS / GRCA 00842)
Colter also elected to preserve and remodel two nineteenth-century buildings that were on the Bright Angel site. Historic preservation would not become a concern in the U.S. for three decades, so her decision was not the obvious one. Colter’s restoration and adaptive reuse of the old post office (originally the Red Horse Stage Station) preserved an example of hand-squared log construction. And by incorporating the notched-log Buckey O’Neill Cabin into a lodge building, Colter preserved the home of an early settler and another authentic piece of 1890s Grand Canyon history.
A local newspaper described Bright Angel Lodge and Cabins this way:
The building rambles good-naturedly with the land, and resembles nothing more than an old pioneer village, depicting first the early pioneer who used rocks nearest at hand, then the Mexican who employed logs plastered with mud, and finally the railroad days, when yellow knotted pine boards were used with a rock foundation. Here, then, in one rambling lodge, are buildings placed carefully together, yet representing periods fifty years apart.
The Hotel Monthly reported, “The development is a new note in resort accommodations, something original, out-of-the-ordinary, a masterpiece in all-year resort accommodations.” This description still rings true 90 years after its opening.
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Panoramic view during construction, c. 1935 (NPS / GRCA 02973)
Sources:
M. R. Tillotson, letter to Director, National Park Service (November 15, 1929), RG 79 C34 Box 65 f1/2 Fred Harvey 1923-31. National Archives at Riverside, California.
Alvin Teal, letter to Virginia Grattan (January 16, 1978). MS 656 Box F2, Grattan Collection. Special Collections, University of Arizona Libraries, Tucson.
“Homely Epic Story of West Told in Bright Angel Lodge, Picturesque New Hotel,” Santa Fe New Mexican, June 10, 1935.
Gordon Chappell, Grand Canyon Village Historic District. National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, US National Park Service Western Region Office, 1975: Item No. 8, p. 2.
The Hotel Monthly, "The New Bright Angel Lodge and Cabins." December 1936: 13-22.