Here we are back at the Grand Canyon. Center left, you can see a side canyon striking off to the distant north rim.
This is near a place called Grandview, which was the site of the canyon’s only hotel from 1893. Pete Berry had arrived as a miner, but found lodging more profitable. He built a two-storey log hotel, picked up visitors after a 12-hour stagecoach ride from Flagstaff, then guided them into the canyon on mules.
In 1901 the Santa Fe railroad arrived at a different location and built a depot. Since the Santa Fe had an agreement with Fred Harvey, one of Fred’s hotels soon appeared– the El Tovar, in 1905. Since it was a lot easier to ride the train to the canyon than to jounce along on a stagecoach, Pete Berry’s hotel soon lost its appeal. Pete remained in the area, and is buried in the local Pioneer Cemetery. Nothing remains of his hotel.
The El Tovar— named after a fairly obscure conquistador who wandered through the area in search of the Seven Cities of Gold— is a very large log structure built on the very rim of the canyon. It design is an interesting mishmash of frontier grandeur and local ideas of European sophistication. There’s a huge lobby ornamented with paintings and elk and bison heads, a gift shop, a bar, big stone fireplaces, and a large dining room with a ceiling supported by colossal wooden beams.
There’s still a rail connection, with daily steam trains (at least in the right season).
The steam trains and hotels might give you a connection to the past, but the real time machine is the canyon itself, which is two billion years old.
