El Tovar Hotel - Grand Canyon National Park

In 1901, the Atchison-Topeka Santa Fe Railway constructed a spur line from Williams, Arizona, that provided access to the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. El Tovar soon followed, providing its guests with the region’s first luxury accommodations.

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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