Grand Canyon Village Historic District

Grand Canyon Village Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark District
Grand Canyon Village
Location	Grand Canyon, Arizona
Architect	Daniel Ray Hull, Kolb,Ellsworth & Emery; Mary E.J. Colter; et al. Charles Whittlesey; et al. (increase)
Architectural style	Other, Pueblo Bungalow/craftsman, Other (increase)
NRHP reference No.	75000343 (original) 95001226 (increase)
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	November 20, 1975
Boundary increase	October 24, 1995
Designated NHLD	February 18, 1987

Grand Canyon Village Historic District comprises the historic center of Grand Canyon Village, on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. The district includes numerous landmark park structures, many of which are National Historic Landmarks themselves, or are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town design as a whole is also significant for its attention to integration with the Grand Canyon landscape, its incorporation of National Park Service Rustic design elements, and for the idiosyncratic design of park concessioner structures such as the El Tovar Hotel.

Design and history

Grand Canyon Village was planned by the National Park Service to be a comprehensive development for tourism on the South Rim. It is the largest example of Park Service town planning extant in the national park system. Initially centered around the terminus of the Grand Canyon Railway, the village expanded as both the Park Service and the park concessioner, the Fred Harvey Company, built or expanded facilities. Initial development was centered around the El Tovar Hotel and the Bright Angel Lodge, both concessioner-operated facilities. The El Tovar was opened in 1905 as a destination hotel on the canyon rim by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, who owned the Grand Canyon spur. A new train depot was built next to the hotel by the railway in 1909. Nearly all of the early development at the village was undertaken by concessioners.

In 1910, while the Grand Canyon was still designated a national monument, Secretary of the Interior Richard Achilles Ballinger suggested that a plan be established before further development took place at the South Rim. Mark Daniels, the general superintendent of the parks from 1914 called for similar comprehensive planning to establish water and sewer systems, power distribution and telephone networks. A 1924 master plan by National Park Service landscape architect Daniel Ray Hull established a "village square" at the intersection of the railroad and east road just below the El Tovar. The first park administration building was established there. Hull used the local topography, dictated by Bright Angel Wash valley's topography, with residential neighborhoods on two small hills divided by a branch of the Bright Angel drainage, away from the main south entrance road down Bright Angel and keeping hotel development in the area of the Bright Angel Camp and the El Tovar. Another square or plaza was intended where the new south entrance road approached the rim, surrounded by antoher administration building, a post office, and a proposed museum. Over time, the plaza became a parking area. Treatment of residential areas varied. Park Service housing was arranged so that automobile access was to the rear, with the house fronts oriented to a central communal space. Grand Canyon Village is one of the earliest uses of this arrangement in a planned community, predating its use at Radburn, New Jersey by Clarence Stein and Henry Wright. Housing for Fred Harvey Company personnel was arranged in a more tradition street-facing arrangement, with a parallel system of alleys for access to garages at the rear of the lots.

Much of the work that was accomplished in the late 1930s was done by Civilian Conservation Corps labor, particularly the landscaping, hich involved the transplantation of native vegetation into areas that had been disturbed by construction.

Contributing structures

Many of the contributing features and structures in Grand Canyon Village are simple landscape structures such as sidewalks, retaining walls and culverts. The canyon rim stone wall is the principle defining feature of the area, constructed in stages between 1905 and 1934. 44 such structures have been identified as contributing features, mostly built of local Kaibab limestone.

The district includes a number of significant structures, some of them National Historic Landmarks in their own right, with several others individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The buildings can be divided into two categories: the fanciful structures built by park concessioners, many of which were designed by Mary Colter, and the more restrained examples of National Park Service Rustic architecture designed by Hull and Thomas Chalmers Vint for park administration and housing. Concessioner structures include:

• El Tovar Hotel (1905), built by the AT&SF as a resort hotel on the canyon's rim. Designed by architect Charles Frederick Whittlesey, the hotel is a National Historic Landmark
• Bright Angel Lodge (1935_, incorporates the Buckey O'Neill Cabin and the Red Horse Lodge, relocated to the site. Formerly the Bright Angel Hotel, the facility was almost entirely rebuilt under the direction of architect Mary Colter.
• Buckey O'Neill Cabin (1897), the oldest structure at the South Rim, individually listed on the NRHP.
• Lookout Studio
• Hopi House (1905) was designed by Colter to resemble a Hopi pueblo. The multistory sandstone structure was built as a living museum in which Hopi artisans would demonstrate and sell their crafts.
• Hermit's Rest
• El Tovar Stables (1904) were built to house horses and mules used for transportation around the park in pre-automobile times, and continue to be used to house mules for the Bright Angel Trail to the Phantom Ranch. Individually listed on the NRHP
• Kolb Brothers Studio (1904) Established by brothers Ellsworth and Emery Kolb, the studio featured the Kolb's films and slide shows of the Grand Canyon in a building perched on and extending over the rim of the canyon at the head of the Bright Angel Trail. The building eventually extended to five stories and includes a small auditorium.
• Verkamp's Curio Store (1906), now Verkamp's VIsitor Center, operated by the National Park Service. Built by Ohioan John George Verkamp, who sold Native American crafts and souvenirs, the two-story adobe building has been described as "modified Mission" style. Members of the Verkamp family lived upstairs through 1978. By 2008, when the store was the oldest concessioner in the national park system, the Verkamp family elected not to reneww their concession. The store closed and the Park Service renovated the building as a visitor center.
• Grand Canyon Power House was built by the AT&SF to provide electricity to concessioner and park facilities. The power house is notable for its application of rustic design principles to an industrial structure and for its creative use of scale. It is a National Historic Landmark.
• Grand Canyon Depot (1910) and Grand Canyon Railway (1905) built by the AT&SF. The depot, designed by Francis W. Wilson, is a National Historical Landmark, and the railway is on the National Register of Historic Places.
• AT&SF Employee residences

Park Service structures include:

• Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent's Residence (1921), originally the park's first headquarters building. It was designed in the National Park Service Rustic style by Hull, and altered in 1931 by Vint to be the superintendent's residence. The residence is individually listed on the NRHP.
• Grand Canyon Park Operations Building (1929), replaced the first headquarters. Now the park's law enforcement center, it is individually listed as a National Historic Landmark.
• Grand Canyon South Rim Ranger's Dormitory
• Park Service Employee residences

The historic core of Grand Canyon Village was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.