Intermountain Histories

Cameron Trading Post — Arizona

2025-09-23T15:38:23+00:00

Two businessmen founded this motel and curio shop in 1916 with tourists in mind, aiming to provide travelers with an “authentic” Southwestern experience. The trading post invited tourists to rest, indulge in a Southwestern-style cuisine, and browse a selection of authentic Navajo and Hopi arts and crafts. For these novelties, it remained a popular tourist attraction throughout the 20th century.

The Kansas City Midland Bridge Company constructed the steel suspension bridge over the Little Colorado River in 1911, making travel across the gorge more convenient. Brothers C.D. and Hubert Richardson saw an opportunity as they anticipated that this road would see more traffic following the bridge’s completion. In 1916, the Richardson brothers purchased 112 acres south of the bridge and built a wooden cabin as the center of their trading business. They served local Navajo and Hopi communities by trading livestock, rugs, skins, and wool in the company’s early years. As a public business in a remote area, increasing numbers of long-distance travelers visited Cameron Trading Post looking for a place to rest. Cameron Trading Post became a convenient rest stop for travelers within the Four Corners region. As the site saw more patronage in the 1920s, the Richardson brothers constructed fuel pumps, a hotel, and a dining room adjacent to the trading post. Toward the mid-century, the Richardson family reported an influx of wealthy automobile tourists making stops at the Cameron Trading Post when traveling to and from the Grand Canyon. This adventurous class of automobile tourists traversing the Southwest sought the “authentic” regional experience at the trading post. Recognizing this site’s popularity, the Fred Harvey Company began including Cameron Trading Post as a stop along their Indian Detours, where guides drove tourists along rugged dirt roads to visit sights like the Painted Desert and the Grand Canyon. Cameron Trading Post was a routine stop along these tours. To cater to these travelers’ interests, the Richardson brothers filled the gift shop with cowboy hats and Native American arts and crafts. Tourists could browse from various Navajo and Hopi baskets, blankets, concho belts, pottery, and turquoise and silver jewelry. Cameron Trading Post’s convenient location near the Little Colorado Bridge continued to attract droves of tourists when the federal government began regulating highways in 1925. The U.S. Bureau of Public Roads established the first stretch of Highway 89 that year, a route between Thistle, Utah, and Flagstaff, Arizona. This route provided travelers with convenient access to multiple national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Zion, and Bryce Canyon. Cameron Trading Post became a popular secondary tourist attraction along this route, offering travelers lodging, dining, and shopping with a uniquely Southwestern flair. The Cameron Trading Post changed hands in 1966 when Hubert Richardson sold the business’s lease to Standard Oil and subleased the hotel, restaurant, and gift shop to the Fred Harvey Company. The trading post remained an international hub for trading Native American arts and crafts. Toward the end of the 20th century, Cameron Trading Post continued to add uniquely Southwestern elements to their business, including a fine art gallery displaying works of local artists, Navajo weavers demonstrating their craft while seated in the gift shop, and the option of ordering a Navajo taco in the dining room. Cameron Trading Post continues to offer an entertaining rest stop experience for travelers along Highway 89.

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Charles Steen’s Former Hilltop Mansion

2018-06-11T22:31:24+00:00

After climbing, camping in, or hiking through the National Parks that surround Moab, visitors might want to eat at a family-owned restaurant—The Sunset Grill. Before its transformation into a restaurant, this complex was the mansion of multi-millionaire uranium miner Charles Steen, a visionary prospector whose rags to riches (and back to rags) story still resonates with those who have seen the best and worst of times.

Each year, over 1.5 million outdoor enthusiasts visit Arches National Park, a mountain biker, hiker, and rock climber paradise, located outside of Moab. One popular restaurant where adrenaline junkies and nature lovers can refill is Sunset Grill, currently owned by a former aerospace engineer and a nightclub manager from Pennsylvania who moved to Moab in 1993. But before it was a restaurant, the site was the hilltop mansion built and owned by Charles Steen, a “rags to riches uranium boom king” who made his fortune in the 1950s.
In the early 1940s, Steen studied geology at the Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy (today the University of Texas at El Paso). After working in South America as a petroleum geologist and then in Texas for Standard Oil Company, Steen was fired for insubordination and blacklisted by the industry. In the December 1949 issue of the The Engineering and Mining Journal, he learned that the Atomic Energy Commission, desperate to supply uranium for the government’s nuclear weapons program, “established minimum prices, guaranteed the rates for ten years, and added a $10,000 bonus for each separate discovery . . . of high-grade uranium from new deposits.” Steen headed west. He, his wife, and four sons moved around in trailers and backcountry, tarpaper shacks for almost two years. Finally, on 6 July 1952, Steen struck big at Mi Visa Mine near Moab, which shipped a million dollars’ worth of ore in its first six months. Before then, he had been sustaining his family on a “diet of potato chips and bananas.” His son recalls that they had been “living in a $15 a month shack, unencumbered with running water or electricity.” But Steen’s willpower paid off. Moab, a sleepy town, became home to a millionaire.
He quickly built a $250,000 hilltop mansion in Moab, replete with a swimming pool, greenhouse, and even servants’ quarters. Steen also lived lavishly by purchasing a private plane, which he flew to Salt Lake City for weekly dancing lessons. Although he spent much of his money lavishly, Steen was known as a friendly man who gave to the community. Every year, he invited the entire population of Moab to annual parties and donated $50,000 toward a local hospital. His discovery put Moab on the map as the “Uranium Capital of the World” and created hundreds of jobs. He was elected to the Utah State Senate in 1958, but when the country had obtained enough ore and stopped supporting his prices, he suffered heavy financial losses. After he declared bankruptcy in 1968, the IRS seized his assets. Although he went from rags to riches, then lost his riches, Steen’s mansion, now a restaurant, is still open for business, overlooking the town like he once did.
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Salt Lake's Historic Crown Burger

2018-05-06T00:59:13+00:00

The next time you eat at Crown Burger, say hello to the cashier. They may just be a member of the Greek family who owns and operates the iconic Utah chain.

Dean Maroudas’ father immigrated to Chicago with his siblings. After spending some time in Chicago, the Maroudases came to Utah where Mr. Maroudas began working for another Greek family at Ajax Presses fashioning dry cleaning presses. When Ajax Presses decided to relocate to Chicago, the Maroudases chose to stay in Utah and open a dinner-night club. Food is “always the Greek default . . . we know how to cook.” The Katzourakis, friends of the Maroudases, opened Crown Burger in 1978. Dean eventually began working at Crown Burger as a dishwasher and is now the acting manager. He later married the Katzourakis’ daughter.
Years before Crown Burger opened its doors, John Katzourakis worked at Ajax Presses with Dean’s father. Ajax’s relocation to Chicago put John and his family out of work, as it had the Maroudases. Some of John’s siblings went to work for Bingham Canyon’s copper mine or the railroad, while John and his wife, Rula, moved to California so John could work at a machining company. During their time at the machining company, he and Rula decided to open Crown Burger.
After their pastrami burger failed to sell in California, the couple moved back to Utah. In 1978, they found a hotdog stand on the corner of 377 East and 200 South in Salt Lake City. With the help of Rula’s brother, Nic, they purchased the hotdog stand and started Crown Burger. Unlike the response in California, Utah went “gang-busters” for the pastrami burger. After six months, the Katzourakis purchased a gas station on the lot behind the hot dog stand. As Crown Burger’s popularity grew, the store expanded. There are now seven Crown Burger locations across Utah.
Greek immigrants in Chicago sold hot dogs, tamales, and other items from food carts in highly industrialized areas. The Crown Burger menu offers a similar diversity – burgers, burritos, fish and chips, and the classic Greek gyro. The community and the customers are most important to Dean and the rest of the Crown Burger family, so what the community loves to eat is what they perfect. “We don’t have [the] vision to say, ‘let’s conquer the world with this,’” Dean said, “We just really like what we are doing. We like the community. . . .We know people’s names. Probably the best way I can put it is we are not entrepreneurs, we are restaurateurs.”
The Greek word philoxenia roughly describes an inclusive friendship, even to strangers, that obligates you to care for their needs. This is the philosophy of Crown Burger, and it is the same philosophy that keeps the Greek community so inclusive and tight-knit today.
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