Winding through the arid region of modern-day north central Nevada, the Humboldt River provided resources to support communities of a few hundred people. Punodungahnivain, or “Place where the house is” in Western Shoshone, was an area at the mouth of the South Fork River, between modern-day Carlin, Elko, and South Fork, that was home to Western Shoshone.

Water—and therefore the river—is sacred for the Western Shoshone, or “Newe” meaning “The People.” The Humboldt represents an important thoroughfare in ancient and modern trade routes, connecting goods from the Pacific with those in the Great Basin and western Rocky Mountains. The fertile river enabled Indigenous communities to thrive between modern-day Carlin and Elko. Roots and berries grew along the river, attracting birds and animals, and pine nut resources grew in the nearby Ruby mountains. The Shoshones hunted waterfowl, antelope, trout, gopher, rabbit, and beaver.

Trappers such as Peter Skene Ogden from the Hudson’s Bay Company arrived in the Humboldt region in the 1820s. They trapped as many beavers as possible in order to make it unprofitable for their competition, nearly wiping out the beaver population for a generation. After the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848, miners and settlers traveled along the Humboldt by the tens of thousands, negatively impacting the environment, depleting finite resources, and disrupting Indigenous lifeways. The California Trail transected Western Shoshone Territory throughout the 1840s through 1860s. Then, in the 1860s, the Central Pacific Railroad began building their Railroad from Sacramento, California, westward towards Utah Territory to join with the Union Pacific at Promontory Summit on May 10, 1869.

By the time CPRR worker Alfred A. Hart took the photo below, dated between 1865 and 1869, natural resources had already been depleted all along the Humboldt. Hart took hundreds of photographs as he traveled with the company, and many of them feature Shoshones. The completion of the railroad brought even more people west, who settled near the tracks in order to benefit from future commerce. These newcomers claimed the most fertile places for themselves and divided up ancestral Shoshone and Paiute lands.

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In 1874, Bryce Canyon became part of a cattle ranch owned by Ebenezer Bryce. His ranch was unsuccessful, but automobile tourism revitalized the area when passable roads reached what is now Zion National Park in 1917. In 1921, Utah’s state legislature accepted a proposition from Park Service director Stephen Mather that protected Bryce Canyon as a state park. Utah made no attempt to develop the area for public use, but the Union Pacific Railroad spurred development in Bryce Canyon by creating the Utah Parks Company in 1923. This connected the Union Pacific’s Cedar City spur line to Bryce Canyon, the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and Zion via bus lines. By establishing a network of parks and resorts, the Union Pacific aimed to compete with other successful railroad companies such as the Northern Pacific, Atchison-Topeka Santa Fe, and Great Northern. These companies had established successful tourist attractions at the South Rim of Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, and Glacier National Park. As tourism brought in profit, road construction improved access to rural points of interest like Bryce Canyon. In 1924, Congress established Utah National Park, and the Utah Parks Company constructed Bryce Canyon Lodge and Deluxe Cabins in the same year to provide visitors with accommodations. Congress enlarged Utah National Park and renamed it Bryce Canyon in 1928.  The Utah Parks Company enlisted Gilbert Stanley Underwood, one of the Union Pacific’s consulting architects, to design Bryce Canyon Lodge. Underwood’s designs are notable for their commitment to rustic architecture, which used natural materials and textures to blend a building with its natural surroundings. He utilized locally quarried stone and large, exposed wooden details throughout the structure, figuratively connecting the building to its location. After the company completed the original building in 1925, it added two new wings in 1926 to make room for an increasing number of visitors. The Utah Parks Company constructed fifteen deluxe guest cabins the following year in a pine grove near the main structure. Their design used rough stone and natural wood to imitate the design of Bryce Canyon Lodge.  During the 1950s, the National Park Service renovated Bryce Canyon Lodge to make room for updated amenities. The hotel originally housed a barber shop, but the Park Service replaced it with a soda fountain. The Park Service also enlarged a road at the hotel’s front entrance to make room for larger vehicles, but the Park service expanded a plaza outside Bryce Canyon Lodge’s front entrance by removing the original bus lane in 1989. In 1985, the Park Service removed sixty-one of the lodge’s original sixty-seven standard cabins. The Sunrise Motel and Sunset Motel replaced them. In 1995, the National Register of Historic Places officially listed forty-two buildings in Bryce Canyon, including Bryce Canyon Lodge. This restricted future renovations, allowing the complex to retain most of its architectural significance. Today, Bryce Canyon Lodge operates as a historic hotel alongside five standard cabins and fifteen deluxe cabins.

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Constructed at the edge of what is now Swiftcurrent Lake, Many Glacier Hotel provided the Great Northern Railway’s second grand hotel at Glacier National Park. It served as the center of the Great Northern’s network of chalets and tent camps alongside the 1910 Glacier Park Hotel. From the grand hotels, tourists could access chalets and tent camps in Glacier’s backcountry. Visitors accessed these locations on horseback, but automobiles later drew tourists away from them. The Great Northern brought an unprecedented level of development into Glacier, and it spent approximately $1.5 million on hotels, chalets, campsites, trails, and roads by 1917. Many Glacier Hotel cost $400,000.  Designed by Great Northern architect Thomas D. McMahon, the hotel comprises three separate buildings connected by covered walkways. The central portion opened in 1915, but the railroad did not complete the hotels’ north and south ends until 1917. Its rough stone siding and foundations resemble the rustic architecture that was becoming increasingly common in national parks. The architect further emphasized this feature in the lobby, which included a grand fireplace and tall wooden support pillars. This imitated the “forest” lobby at Glacier Park Hotel, which uses massive Douglas fir trees as pillars and includes an open fire pit. Many Glacier briefly featured an indoor pool, but the Great Northern removed it due to sanitary issues.  The railroad also intended Many Glacier to match the Great Northern’s other buildings in the park, which imitate Swiss chalets. The hotel’s three sections look like individual Swiss chalets from a distance. Wooden pieces called moldings adorn their windows and balconies, and these pieces feature cutout patterns inspired by the Swiss chalet style. This created a unified sense of place in the region and emulated Glacier’s status as the “Switzerland of North America.” Early advertisements capitalized on this idea during World War I, encouraging guests to “see America first” instead of spending their vacation money to visit foreign locales. The Great Northern hired numerous artists to paint Glacier National Park, and their work hung in train depots and ticket offices. The railroad displayed a variety of paintings from the See America First in Many Glacier Hotel, but only a few remain today.  While Glacier National Park quickly became a popular tourist attraction, the Great Northern’s vast building network became increasingly expensive to maintain. Initially, the railroad kept its resort system to draw train passengers into the park, but it made numerous attempts to sell the hotels as more visitors began to arrive by car. In 1957, the Great Northern hired the Knutson Hotel Company to prepare Glacier’s hotels for sale, and Glacier Park Inc. purchased them in 1960. In 2001, the National Park Service funded a $42 million restoration project that replaced the lodge’s roof and siding, restored original architectural features like balconies, and reinstalled an original circular staircase that the Knutson Hotel Company removed from the hotel lobby in 1957. Xanterra Parks and Resorts currently manages Many Glacier Hotel.

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The Great Northern Railway constructed Glacier Park Hotel in 1913 to provide visitors touring Glacier National Park with a starting point along the railroad. From Glacier Park Hotel, these tourists entered a complex system of smaller chalets and tent camps. Each hotel and chalet included a guide operation that provided saddle horses to visitors, who entered the area from a train depot connected to the Glacier Park complex. Resorts in Europe inspired this system, and an American national park had never utilized it. The resort brought an unprecedented level of development into Glacier, and the Great Northern spent about $1.5 million dollars (about $36 million today) on hotels, chalets, campsites, trails, and roads by 1917.  The Great Northern Railroad executive F.I. Whitney encouraged the railroad to seek out tourist attractions in the Glacier region as soon as it reached the park’s southern end. Famous conservationists like George Bird Grinnell and John Muir, who brought Glacier to the attention of railroad founder James J. Hill and his son Louis, reinvigorated Whitney’s efforts. The failure of local oil and copper and oil industries provided a political opening for conservationists, and James J. Hill soon began to advocate for the area’s protection. However, Hill opposed the conservationists’ idea of a vast forest reserve at Glacier, and this ultimately shaped the park’s development. President William Howard Taft signed the bill that protected Glacier National Park in 1910.  Luxurious chalets in Switzerland inspired the architecture of Glacier Park Hotel and the Great Northern’s other buildings, which catered to the tastes of wealthy travelers. Louis Hill, who served as president of the Great Northern during construction, chose this style. It connected the system visually and advertised Glacier’s reputation as the “Switzerland of North America.” Glacier Park Hotel, designed by Samuel Bartlett, is particularly famous for its massive log pillars, which support the hotel’s vast roof. These logs vary in size, with the largest being over forty feet tall and three to four feet wide, and they are most prevalent in the hotel’s lobby. Advertised as a “forest,” these log posts retain their bark, emphasizing their organic nature and contributing to the idea of an indoor forest. The lobby even includes a fire pit in its center. These features emphasized the hotel’s environment and emulated the rough, handcrafted style popularly defined as rustic architecture. The luxurious complex included a music room, writing room, a sun parlor, and a hospital in case of emergencies.  In 1957, the Great Northern hired Knutson Hotel Company to renovate its hotels for sale. The $3 million project expanded the hotel gift shop, installed bathrooms in all the guest rooms, added a swimming pool to the hotel complex, and renamed the hotel Glacier Park Lodge. In 1960, Glacier Park Inc. purchased the Glacier resort system from the Great Northern. The National Park Service granted Xanterra Parks and Resorts concession rights in Glacier in 2013, but Glacier Park Inc. retained Glacier Park Lodge and several other properties.

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Before the Atchison-Topeka Santa Fe Railway reached Grand Canyon Village in 1901, only a few rudimentary hotels served the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. These establishments relied on a local stagecoach line, which operated between Flagstaff, Arizona and a ranch near the rim. Because the twenty-dollar journey took three days to complete, the railroad provided a more efficient way to reach the canyon, and its arrival shifted the center of activity at Grand Canyon Village away from Thurston’s stagecoach line. Fred Harvey, a hospitality company whose Harvey houses provided quality food and lodging to passengers on the Santa Fe Railway, constructed El Tovar near the railroad tracks to draw in train passengers. The hotel cost $250,000 to construct, providing the Grand Canyon’s first luxury lodgings.  Opened in 1905, El Tovar hotel predated the Grand Canyon’s designation as a national monument in 1908 and a national park in 1919. As a national monument, the Grand Canyon received less funding and attention than established national parks like Yellowstone. However, as tourism increased, calls for the area to receive further protections intensified. Ford Harvey, who served as president of the Harvey company until 1928, routinely advocated for Grand Canyon’s national park status at conferences. Conservation efforts gained strength when Arizona became a state in 1912, but many Grand Canyon residents opposed the national park proposal due to concerns about land and mineral rights. Regardless, President Woodrow Wilson officially signed the bill that established Grand Canyon National Park on February 26, 1919, and the Harvey company secured a hospitality contract from the new National Park Service (created in 1916) in 1920. Architect Charles Whittlesey’s design for El Tovar used the rustic architectural style, which aimed to establish a connection between buildings and their environment. Whittlesey designed the log siding on the first floor to resemble the wall of a log cabin. Natural building materials like rough stone and logs appear throughout the building, reinforcing this style. Whittlesey combined these rustic features with the architecture of traditional luxury resorts, which catered to Victorian tastes and a desire for exotic destinations. Decorative wooden poles known as balusters, which mimic Swiss chalet architecture, enclose El Tovar’s porches and balconies. The design also includes a small round tower known as a turret, which echoes resort architecture.  El Tovar originally featured luxurious amenities, including hot running water and electric lighting. In the 1950s, the Harvey company added a new cocktail lounge to the hotel’s dining area. A 1983 renovation exchanged the hotel’s sparse public restrooms with private facilities, added carpeting, replaced windows, and included a new heating system. For this reason, El Tovar currently houses seventy-nine rooms instead of the original ninety-five. In 1968, Hawaii-based hospitality company Amfac purchased the Harvey company and gained control of El Tovar. In the 1990s, Amfac created Xanterra Parks and Resorts to control its concessions at the Grand Canyon, and Xanterra still manages El Tovar today. 

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On March 1, 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant officially signed Yellowstone into law as America’s first national park. The Yosemite Act of 1864 had restricted settlement in the Yosemite Valley and placed it under the jurisdiction of California’s state government, but the Yellowstone Park Act expanded upon this legislation by designating all of Yellowstone a public park. As a result, the Yellowstone Park Act contained many restrictions on private development and very few administrative procedures to enforce regulations or oversee public use. Poorly supervised independent companies called concessionaires, who paid park administrators a fee to use the land, ran Yellowstone’s public facilities. Only a few concessionaires ferried guests into the park, but the Northern Pacific Railroad quickly expressed interest in Yellowstone’s small tourism industry. When the Northern Pacific reached Gardiner, Montana, in the early 1880s, its presence provoked interest in Yellowstone’s tourism industry. At this time, only a few concessionaires opened small hotels and tent camps. One such concessionaire, the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company, constructed the Upper Geyser Basin Hotel in 1885 to preserve its failing business. The Northern Pacific purchased its properties in 1885, gaining control of the Upper Geyser Basin Hotel. When fire destroyed it in 1894, the importance of a new hotel in Yellowstone became clear. At the time, many railroad hotels utilized conventional architectural styles that provided a sense of familiarity for their upper-class audience. The Northern Pacific’s Lake Hotel, constructed in 1890, followed this example. However, rustic architecture, which emphasized harmony with the natural environment surrounding a structure, gained popularity in the 1890s. Because distinctive architecture drew more attention from visitors, the Northern Pacific experimented with a rustic style for its new hotel.  The Yellowstone Park Association, a subsidiary of the Northern Pacific, selected Robert Reamer to design its new rustic hotel. The railroad constructed the log building near Yellowstone’s most famous geyser, from which the Old Faithful Inn derived its name. The Union Pacific completed the central core of the hotel, known as the “Old House,” in 1903. The finished building was seven stories tall at its highest point, and it cost a total of $140,000 (about $4.9 million today) to construct. The Northern Pacific set aside a further $25,000 (approximately $875,000 today) to furnish the new hotel. Reamer designed his massive log structure to emulate Swiss chalets and Norwegian villas, and he utilized rough, unfinished wood logs obtained in the Park on both the inside and outside of the building to connect it to Yellowstone’s forested landscape. The hotel’s most prominent feature is its seven-story lobby, which features a vast fireplace made of native stone. A complex log frame that supports the hotel’s roof surrounds this room. The structure’s use of exposed wooden supports emphasizes the rustic nature of the lobby, and a series of wooden balconies overlook the main floor of the hotel.

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The Great Salt Lakes' southern beach became a well-known vacation spot because of the Saltair Resort and its motto “Try to Sink” which encouraged visitors' curiosity to swim and float in the salty waters. Today, the beach has seen a drop in visitation due to receding water levels, with about 130,000 fewer visitors from 2012 to 2022. At the beach's peak visitation during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, beach life consisted of swimming, picnicking, and carnival rides such as a rollercoaster, merry-go-round, and Ferris wheel.

The Goshute tribe and the Skull Valley Goshutes live near and still use the resources of the southern end of Great Salt Lake. In 1847, Mormon settlers first came to Salt Lake Valley and initiated the recreational beach life on the lake. In the 1860s, Mormon settler Heber Kimball built a ranch near Black Rock Beach. Known later as “Rock House” this spot became the first well-known swimming spot on the lake. Attraction grew with the completion of the Utah Central Railroad in 1870 and the Utah-Nevada Railway in 1875 which made Black Rock and the future Saltair Beach accessible to transcontinental visitors.

In 1893, Deseret News announced the construction of a new resort called “Saltair.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints invested the most money in the Saltair Beach Company and hoped to create a wholesome recreational resort that was family-oriented. Saltair opened in 1893 and soon was nicknamed “Coney Island of the West” for its many carnival and recreational attractions. The beaches were most popular on American holidays such as the Fourth of July with thousands of people visiting to swim on weekends and special occasions. In 1919 attendance reached 450,000 people and the resort's popularity peaked during the 1920s. However, on April 22, 1925, Saltair burned down for unknown reasons, and by the 25th, its manager announced rebuilding efforts with no proposed start date. With the promise to be “larger, stronger, and more beautiful” than ever by the Salt Lake Tribune, the second Saltair opened in May of 1926. Nonetheless, the resort did not live up to its predecessor and presently the third Saltair, due to another fire, serves as a concert venue.

Saltair was the center of beach life at the southern shore of Great Salt Lake, and with the decline of the resort came the decline of beach life. The latest reviews describe the beach as having great views, but decreasing water levels means a long and smelly walk to the water. In 2023 alone the lake lost two feet of water to evaporation and while Utah policymakers and environmental programs have forged a plan to save the lake, they did not include any Native tribes in the conversation. Today, people can still swim, or rather float, in the 12% average salinity levels of the Great Salt Lake compared to the Pacific Ocean's 3.5% average salinity. As well as kayak, boat, and sunbathe on the southern beach's shores and marina.

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There is a community in the mountains of Santa Fe County, New Mexico that has redeemed itself from “ghost town” status–though they still claim the title. Madrid was best known for its wealth of coal during the mining boom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The town was first founded in 1869, attracting attention from its location along the Santa Fe Railroad. Traveling journalist Charles Fletcher Lummis said that there was no other railroad that “penetrated such a wonderland of the pictorial in geography and in humanity.” Trains used Madrid to refuel and stock up on coal. The prosperity of the land brought in a large enough community for businesses like the trading post, stores, schools, a diner, and a boarding house to be built and well-used in the early twentieth century.  Life in mining towns is sometimes thought of as exciting–newfound wealth and communities brought together in the wake of the gilded age–but the reality was far grittier. Men, women, and children who worked in coal mines were subject to the dangers of collapsing shafts, explosions, and machinery malfunctions, as well as gas poisoning and other illnesses brought on by poor air quality. However, the corporations running the town had several initiatives that attempted to make life more enjoyable for the residents.  The free electricity they provided to each home was certainly the most valuable perk, but there were also annual festivities that were required in an attempt to boost the community’s morale. As Christmas approached each year, every resident had to ornament their house with string lights, buy a Christmas tree, and make sure their house was as much of a spectacle as possible. With 3,000 residents by the 1930s, Madrid did become quite a spectacle, drawing in crowds from Albuquerque and other nearby communities in awe of the light displays. When blackouts for World War II started, the Christmas lights were put out, and shortly after the war ended, the mines were closed for good. As steam locomotives were replaced with diesel engines, coal lost its value and the mines in Madrid were shut down not long after the war ended. The population rapidly declined, and Madrid sat among other former mining towns in Santa Fe county, with the threat of complete abandonment. Yet, Madrid never quite lost its charm. It went on to be featured in several movies, from 1970 to the early 2000s, and now it is home to artists, quirky landmarks, and converted historic buildings.

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Apache County, which makes up the northeast region of Arizona, has been occupied since at least 800 A.D. by Ancestral Puebloans (formerly known as “Anasazi”). The first of many Spanish expeditions to the Arizona/New Mexico region lasted from 1540-1542, and began a tumultuous relationship with the indigenous population. In the following years Spanish colonists introduced new cattle to the region, and sheepherding became a popular practice for the next several hundred years. In 1864 the U.S. government issued a forced displacement of the Navajo people known as the “Long Walk.” It was a harsh and unforgiving journey that resulted in at least 500 deaths. One region exiled during the Long Walk later became known as Lupton, one of several unincorporated communities along Route 66.  Famous for its scenic “painted cliffs,” brightly colored roadside shops, and appearance in the 1940 film adaptation of Grapes of Wrath, Lupton was built from a railroad settlement in 1905. The community's namesake, G.W. Lupton, was a trainmaster and owner of the first trading post in the area. In the post-war tourism boom of the early 1950s, the Yellowhorse family of the Navajo Reservation opened their own trading post. The building was painted a striking yellow with red and black painted signage advertising “The Indian Market Place: Deal with the Friendly Navajo.” Although Route 66 had given the area a new life after the railroad revolution, the construction plans for Interstate 40 bypassed Lupton. Like so many other little towns that survived only from the tourist revenue, Lupton soon slipped into obscurity. The shop fronts have not been well-preserved, and there is not much charm left to draw people in, but the sight of the painted cliffs when the sun hits them just right remains as breathtaking as it always was. Twelve miles west of Lupton and the New Mexico border another now deserted town called Houck has its own storied past. In 1877 James Houck, a horseback-riding mail carrier, established a trading post along his route which ran from Prescott, Arizona to Fort Wingate, New Mexico. The post, which was called “Houck’s Tank,” expanded into a small community which adopted Houck’s name. He lived a fairly successful life, but had a hard time staying out of trouble. He was no stranger to shoot-outs or plots of revenge–and his friendship with the Tewksbury family put him in the middle of a major feud between two ranching families. Known as the Pleasant Valley War or the Graham-Tewksbury Feud, it resulted in somewhere between thirty-five to fifty deaths. His career beyond mail delivery included sheepherding, mining, trading, and a position as the Apache County Deputy Sheriff. Yet he is memorialized now as the namesake for the once lively ghost town of Houck, Arizona. In late 1926, Route 66 made its way through Houck, attracting new visitors to what had once been nothing more than a trading post. Although becoming a part of Route 66 helped bring a more steady flow of business and traffic, Houck never quite blossomed the way other towns along the highway did. A gas station, a grocery store, a “Pancake House,” and a few other small establishments popped up, but much of it has since gone out of business and become overgrown. In 1998, long after the excitement died down, the Native American Bahá'í Institute opened as a place of worship, training, and gathering place for the Navajo reservation and surrounding communities.

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In the latter half of the nineteenth century, thousands of people, including many immigrants, flocked to the Intermountain West region in search of economic opportunity. Virginia City, Nevada was a popular destination for these laborers due to its booming silver mining industry. The city sprung up in the late 1850s, and by the late 1860s, it was the largest mining town in Nevada. Most who migrated to Virginia City were of European descent, but the town also attracted many Chinese laborers. As was common in other parts of the country, the Chinese in Virginia City were willing to work for lower wages than other ethnic groups. This increased the competitiveness of the labor market in Virginia City and turned other groups against the Chinese community.  In 1869, anti-Chinese sentiment was running high in Virginia City, and the unionized miners in the city decided to act against the Chinese laborers working on grading the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. On September 29th, a mob of nearly 400 men marched on the Chinese. Sensing trouble, Sheriff W. J. Cummings followed the mob and tried to stop them, but he was powerless against the mass of angered miners. When the mob arrived at the tracks, they demanded that the Chinese depart within thirty minutes and began destroying their property and makeshift residences. Luckily, no Chinese people were injured by the mob, but the property destruction was extensive.  A week later, William Sharon, a railroad official, met with the leaders of the mob and came to an agreement with two provisions: first, the railroad would stop employing Chinese workers; and second, the mob would stop harassing the Chinese. Sharon was reluctant to enter into this agreement because he could employ Chinese laborers at a better rate than white laborers, but the mob could not be reasoned with. They simply wanted the Chinese gone.  Local newspapers condemned the actions of the mob and called for those involved to be arrested; however, they knew it would be extremely difficult to find a jury who would convict the mob members. Indeed, no action was taken against any of the mob participants. By October 21st, the railroad only employed workers of European descent. Many of the Chinese people did leave town, but others found various forms of employment in the city. Chinese people faced continual discrimination in Virginia City, but they continued to find work and ways to send money back to their families in China and make a life in the country.

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Joseph C. Metlen was born in Pennsylvania in 1834. He arrived in Montana, in 1867, thirty years before he constructed Hotel Metlen. He and his brother worked as freighters from Corrine, Utah. Metlen valued his civic duty and represented Beaverhead County in the territorial legislature in 1871 and was elected as county treasurer in Dillion in 1883. As ambitious as he was, Metlen ran for sheriff in 1884 without success. The Hotel Metlen opened to the public on February 11, 1898. The Metlen’s design modeled the Second Empire Style popular in the nineteenth century. Its most distinguishable feature is the Mansard roof typical of many other hotels built around the same period and most popular between the 1860s and 1880s. The roof’s style is recognizable by the slopes on each side. Another major characteristic of Second Empire architecture is the hotel’s two stories and brick walls. Inside of the building is a lobby, a bar, sample rooms, a kitchen, twenty-seven guest rooms, and the proprietor’s room.  The hotel did not start successfully, as there were a few issues with its first structure. Originally, when the hotel was still named the Corrine in 1897, the structure was made of cloth-lined partitions that lacked the stability and permanence necessary for it to thrive. In 1892, a fire destroyed the Corrine, leading Metlen to build a new and improved hotel. With a clean slate, Metlen altered the structure’s overall appearance. These changes included painting the exterior white and building a penthouse on the roof. Metlen set up the hotel to potentially have multiple functions. (For example, during WWII, the penthouse served as an aircraft control center for report aircraft movements.) A local newspaper called the Hotel Metlen “the dawn of an era of better things for the city,” as it would attract tourists and provide commerce. The hotel closed in 2008, but two bars inside the building, owned by Phylly Sax, remain open. Current staff have said that keys go missing and furniture moves, contributing to rumors of hauntings and strange activity. Most of the old furnishings and original woodwork remain intact. The appearance of the inside of the hotel caters to fans of the Old West aesthetic with a hodgepodge of items like pistols and animal skulls.

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The original owner of the St. Charles was French-born Albert J. Muller. Muller started his career in Carson City as a professional baker until he realized that a hotel business was more promising. Although most of his patrons were French-Canadian wood choppers, the hotel became a frequent host to social gatherings in town. The hotel is the second oldest in Nevada, and it is one of the oldest extant commercial buildings in Carson City. It was typical for commercial buildings in the late-nineteenth century to have a low-pitched roof, decorative brackets under a cornice, and tall narrow windows. Initially, the hotel existed as two separate buildings. Construction on the northern section, the St. Charles, started April 1, 1862, and the southern section, the Muller Hotel, began the following month. Numerous alterations to the hotel over the years result in its unique look, not belonging to any particular architectural period. The architectural style is closest to Italianate, a style that was most common for many American main-street commercial buildings.  The hotel remained a successful business as it went through several name and ownership changes until the 1980s. Before its period of decline, the hotel went through many transformations. In 1895, Gilbert and Dorcas Briggs changed its name to the Briggs’ House. In 1910, it became the Golden West Hotel. Over the years, the hotel changed again and was known as the Travelers Hotel, Hotel Page, the Pony Express Hotel when it was at its largest room count, and finally back to St. Charles Muller’s Hotel. Overall, the hotel’s ownership changed sixteen times over a 142-year period. On top of its many name changes, the hotel building has also several different businesses occupy its grounds. Some of these were a stagecoach office, a saloon, a restaurant, retail shops, and a grammar school classroom. Not much of the building remains in its original form, yet it shows signs of the changes it has gone through in its purposes, names, and owners. Today, the hotel is beautifully painted red and gold. Rooms with modern décor and comforts are available through Airbnb, making it easy to book online. In the hotel’s history, there were periods of time where the hotel was inaccessible, but today it is open and catering to current methods of booking a place to stay.

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The founder of The Grand Imperial, C.S. Thompson, represented the Crown Perfumery in London, England. He moved to Silverton, Colorado in 1882 to inspect mining prospects, and he purchased four lots of the twenty-first block to make Silverton “the best town in the Southern part of Colorado.” Thompson knew that a hostelry was necessary for housing visitors such as wealthy mine owners, black powder explosives salesmen and other speculators. Many of the early guests were, like Thompson, silver barons checking on their holdings. The structure of the building includes French Second Empire features such as dormer windows that extend from the Mansard roof. The columns on the exterior of the first floor are examples of Italianate architecture. The centerpiece in the tavern was made of mahogany and cherry wood backed by three one-inch-thick plate glass mirrors that were imported from France. Much of the western influence in the hotel’s design is due to later owner Winfield Morton wanting to incorporate his Texas background into the heavily Victorian appearance. The result was the addition of western furnishings and interior decorating. Yet, the most recent owners stated that “there was never a more classic example of Victorian architecture.” Although the decorations and general appearance are eclectic, the owners chose to maintain a uniform appearance to match what the building looked like in its most successful period during the silver rush.  The hotel was originally known as the Grand Hotel and has gone through many phases since, not all of which were successful. The construction plans for the hotel included three stories, arch windows, a saloon, a dining hall, stores, offices, guest rooms, sample rooms, and suites. The first floor housed the local post office, the town bank, the Bureau of Mines, a general store, a doctor’s office, and the Silverton Standard Newspaper. The second-floor housed courtrooms for the town government. The Sample Room allowed for salesmen to use the hotel for their commercial ventures. Instead of lugging sample cases, businessmen could leave their belongings to sell in a room near to where they were staying. In 1950 Winfiled Morton of Texas bought the hotel but after refurbishing it he went into foreclosure. In 1958 management passed to a longtime resident of Silverton, Lou Parcell, until he passed it along to the Broadmoor Hotel’s ownership group in 1963.  The Harper family—who also owned the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad—bought the hotel in 2015 to begin restoration. The family restored windows, carpet, and bathrooms. The Harpers added authentic furniture from the late nineteenth to guestrooms to restore the hotel as closely as possible to the state of its original appearance. 

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Henry Strater, a pharmacist from Cleveland, developed an interest in seeing the town of Durango, Colorado prosper. Believing the town needed place for railroad travelers to stay, Stater built the hotel with his brothers, Fred and Frank, and his father Antone, who backed the costs of building. The three brothers traveled to Durango by train in 1880 to bid on a plumbing contract in the town’s early days. Within the first few months of their arrival, the brothers established the Strater Brothers Paints and Oils Store. Henry was less interested in selling goods and more intrigued by the prospects of the hotel business. However, Henry had no desire to run the hotel and he leased the building to a proprietor named H.L. Rice.  At the height of the Gilded Age, architects combined historical styles. The Strater is an excellent example, as the structure of the hotel is an eclectic Victorian design with a boxy Italianate Romanesque structure and Renaissance details. The original building included a corner tower that combined Palladian and Gothic architecture. The original four-story brick building sits on the southwest corner of Main Street and 7th Street. Henry Strater constructed a three-story annex in 1892. The owners restored or refurbished the lobby and guest rooms to maintain its original condition as needed. The extravagant appearance cost $70,000, and the building’s height fit the narrative of Durango’s boom-town atmosphere. Desires to expand the city resulted in the improvements to the hotel.  The hotel declined in the Silver Panic of 1895, when the market price of silver plummeted. Mining was no longer profitable as it once wa,s and both Durango and the Strater Hotel lost income. Henry Strater and H.L. Rice went out of business due to the panic’s financial devastation, as many of their visitors were miners checking on their holdings. After losing the hotel, Henry Strater and his wife Carrie moved to Philadelphia, leaving behind the once successful hotel. Hattie Mashburn and Charles E. Stilwell bought the hotel in 1893. At the turn of the century, Mashburn and Stilwell offered opera and fine dinners at the hotel. It was the start of a new era for the Strater.  Jentra and Earl Barker Jr., whose family bought the hotel from Stillwell and Mashburn in 1926, are credited for renovating the Strater. Their goal was to restore the interior to resemble how it may have looked in the Victorian Era. The couple found authentic Victorian furniture at antique stores. Their son continued the restoration by adding woodwork and hand-printed wallpaper by Bradbury and Bradbury, a company that specializes in recreating historical patterns.  The legacy of the Strater is in the hands of the current owner, Rod Barker, who continues to hold up the standard of the hotel. The Office Spiritorium, award-winning Mahogany Grill, and The Diamond Belle Saloon with Ragtime Pianists, are all parts of the hotel that make it inviting to guests. Barker has incorporated the collective vision of each of the hotel’s previous owners to create an exciting place for visitors to stay, while still heavily embracing historical background. 

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Originally from Weatherford, Texas, John Weatherford traveled to Flagstaff in 1882 as a merchant hoping to sell goods to those who came through the town. By 1887, Weatherford became Justice of the Peace and a prominent member of local society. His brother, P.R. Weatherford, was also an entrepreneur who worked as a clerk for the Babbitts, a prominent ranching and merchant family. The Weatherford brothers’ first idea was to build a general store, but after the Babbitt family bought them out, they discovered a different way to contribute to the growing town: opening a hotel. The Weatherford Hotel had its grand opening on January 1, 1900. The Weatherford Hotel’s architecture has gone through some physical transformations since its opening day. The hotel is made of brick and faced with local red sandstone due to a city ordinance passed in 1897 after a series of bad fires. The building’s original roof line was modeled after the Greek revival style with a denticulated cornice (the detailed molding along the exterior) and two pediments (an area supported by columns) that were fashionable in the early to late nineteenth century. In its earliest days, the ground floor contained a general store and storage room. The second floor had a parlor and eight bedrooms and one shared bath. The Weatherfords built an additional section to the southwest side of the building in 1899 and a sidewalk in 1915, and these renovations helped keep the hotel appealing to guests. The owners continued building guest rooms to accommodate more visitors as the population of travelers grew.  Between the 1920s and the 1970s, the hotel declined after multiple fires damaged the facility. For a time, Henry Taylor and Sam leased the hotel from the Babbitt family to house and rehabilitate state psychiatric patients, and they bought the building in 1975. In the 1980s, the hotel was used as a youth hostel. Taylor said he “bought the hotel with the vision that downtown would come back.” What he meant was similar to the Weatherfords’ original vision to help the town grow. Taylor saved the building from demolition and restored the building to restore it as a hotel. Today, the hotel’s structure is the result of the owners’ ambitions to revitalize Flagstaff’s historic district. However, the purpose of the hotel is not only to embody a piece of the past, but also to serve the present, as the hotel still functions as a social setting. On New Year’s Eve, the town of Flagstaff comes out to witness the hotel’s giant pinecone, lit with LED lights, drop once the clock strikes twelve. Even without a holiday, locals and visitors can go to any of the three pubs inside the building (Charly’s, the Zane Grey Ballroom, and the Gopher Hole).

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As an instrumental wagon route across the Rocky Mountains, the Mullan Road carried much of the traffic between Fort Benton in what is now Montana to Fort Walla Walla in present-day Washington. With the discovery of placer and quartz mines in places such as Gold Creek, Virginia City, Bear Gulch, and Deer Lodge in Montana from 1862 to 1864, population and the demand for supplies boomed. Along this route plodded horses, mules, and also camels. The first arrived in Montana in 1865. Some had been bought from Nevada salt delivery trains; others had been acquired from the scattered stock of the US government’s short-lived Camel Corps. Still others may have come from the efforts of businessman Frank Laumeister to employ them in the British Columbia Cariboo Mining Company. These camels carried everything from mail to flour to nail kegs to gold dust, and they worked the routes between mining camps in the west and south of Montana territory before they began plying the Mullan Road across the Rockies. These exotic creatures made for memorable stories, including one in which a hunter shot one down thinking it was a moose, and had to surrender to the camel’s owner his cash, gun, ammunition, watch, and his deed to a claim in Ophir. Though both the camel’s owner and the Montana Post article printing the story ridiculed this hunter for being ignorant of camels, quotidian camel sightings did not remain a feature of western Montana life for long. A settler who moved to the Helena area at the age of nine in 1867 reported that by then camel trains were already the subject of stories only and not firsthand experience. A major obstacle against widespread adoption of camels, despite their load carrying capacity and remarkable endurance, was that mules and horses could not stand them. The smell and sight of camels instigated many commotions, including one that deprived Missoulans of their Fourth of July shipment of liquor. One Montana settler even claimed he won a bet based on horses’ fear of camels. Furthermore, camels had to compete not only with other, more common beasts of burden, but also with the railroads advancing across the continent. The establishment of transcontinental rail systems shaped the development of transport, trade, and settlement away from the highway of the Mullan Road that camels traveled and, eventually, away from the need for camels at all. While the 1869 track connection did not pass directly through Montana, merchants and settlers and territorial governments pioneered new southerly transportation routes to link up with the transcontinental railway. Given the opposition of many muleteers and horse handlers, it is not surprising camels were not transplanted to these new trails. Then, 1883 saw the completion of Montana’s own Northern Pacific Railroad, reducing the necessity of the Mullan Road and the camels that plied it. These Montanan camels soon faded into the stuff of legend and colorful history.

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