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.
\nOpened 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.
\nArchitect 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.
\nEl 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.
","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"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.","website":"","related_resources":["Fried, Stephen. Appetite for America: How Visionary Businessman Fred Harvey Built a Railroad Hospitality Empire That Civilized the Wild West – One Meal at a Time. New York: Bantam Books, 2010.
","Harrison, L.S. “El Tovar.” In Architecture in the Parks: A National Historic Landmark Theme Study. Washington, D.C.: U.S Department of the Interior, 2001. https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/harrison/harrison5.htm.
","Howard, Kathleen L. and Diana F. Pardue. Over the Edge: Fred Harvey at the Grand Canyon and in the Great Southwest. Tucson: Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2016.
","Hughes, Donald J. The Story of Man at Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon: Grand Canyon Natural History Association, 1967.
","Rothman, Hal K. Devil’s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth-Century American West. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2000.
"],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/4856f91fdf081f933e9854aa688f9055.jpg":{"id":3703,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"El Tovar’s east side, circa 1905","description":"El Tovar’s east side, circa 1905. This portion of the building features the hotel’s main entrance. Log siding is visible on the first floor, and the decorated terrace in the upper left is reminiscent of chalet architecture.
|U.S National Park Service. El Tovar Hotel – Circa 1905, c. 1905. NPGallery, https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/F775F7DA-155D-451F-6720CC6CAAE65E80.
","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/4856f91fdf081f933e9854aa688f9055.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/2d214a94b2d3c0575952bd8c163dfa87.jpg":{"id":3704,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"El Tovar Hotel","description":"Today, El Tovar’s exterior largely remains the same, but paved roads, sidewalks, and new amenities accommodate the hotel’s modern guests.U.S National Park Service. El Tovar Hotel (1905), 2010. NPGallery, https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/F74BFE25-155D-451F-67FA663552F30DE7.
","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/2d214a94b2d3c0575952bd8c163dfa87.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/b1e5bc565ce2723c2eb9d2a8b233aa4f.jpg":{"id":3705,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"The Rendezvous Room, Hotel El Tovar, c. 1905","description":"Architect Charles Whittlesey designed the Rendezvous Room to serve as part of El Tovar’s lobby and reception area. The room’s natural wooden furnishings and mounted heads emphasized El Tovar’s rustic nature, which emulated the design of a hunting lodge. Navajo rugs establish a sense of place in the Southwestern hotel, and the support posts throughout the room reinforce Whittlesey’s use of natural materials. |Detroit Publishing Company. The Rendezvous, Hotel El Tovar, Grand Canyon of Arizona, c. 1905. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://www.loc.gov/resource/cph.3b14142/.
","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/b1e5bc565ce2723c2eb9d2a8b233aa4f.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/9e838c28db4ccc6897ab3b808ec3aab4.jpg":{"id":3706,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Arrival of the First Santa Fe RR Train, 1901","description":"On September 17, 1901, The arrival of the first Santa Fe train at Grand Canyon reoriented tourism on the South Rim. The three-hour journey cost $3.95, replacing a much longer $20 stagecoach ride that brought tourists from Flagstaff, Arizona to a local ranch owned by J. Wilbur Thurber. The railroad used tank cars to provide water to Grand Canyon Village, and one of them is visible in the background on the left. |U.S National Park Service. 1901 – Arrival of the First Train, 1901. NPGallery, https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/F80842D6-155D-451F-677A510372FFAA2E.
","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/9e838c28db4ccc6897ab3b808ec3aab4.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/aceb65648d9bffb79a9aa998a13b8dd1.jpg":{"id":3707,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Grand Canyon Railway","description":"Today, trains still run on the Grand Canyon Railway. El Tovar is visible through the trees above the steam engine, identifiable by the tall, decorative poles on its upper terraces. |U.S National Park Service. Railway Offers Daily Service, 2010. NPGallery, https://npgallery.nps.gov/AssetDetail/F758486D-155D-451F-679EC950ACBBE3E3.
","thumbnail":"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/square_thumbnails/aceb65648d9bffb79a9aa998a13b8dd1.jpg"},"https://www.intermountainhistories.org/files/fullsize/5c75813e6514b746b78d94d0b595a36e.jpg":{"id":3708,"mime-type":"image/png","title":"Rendezvous Room in El Tovar’s lobby, 2018","description":"This 2018 view of the Rendezvous Room in El Tovar’s lobby shows that the space remains much the same. Decorations such as mounted heads and simple wooden furniture demonstrate a commitment to the room’s original design. Various renovations updated the hotel’s floors and interiors to accommodate larger volumes of tourists, and a 1983 project included carpeting in heavily visited public areas like this one. |Highsmith, Carol M. The dark and rustic lobby at the El Tovar Hotel, the signature 1905 lodge at Grand Canyon National Park, which protects a large portion of a steep-sided and winding gorge carved by the Colorado River across northern Arizona, 2018. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, https://www.loc.gov/resource/highsm.54365/.
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