Xanterra Travel Collection (formerly Xanterra Parks & Resorts, Amfac Resorts and Amfac Parks & Resorts) is a privately owned American park and resort management company based in

Greenwood Village, Colorado The City of Greenwood Village is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 15,691 at the 2020 United States Census. Greenwood Village is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Me ...

, controlled by entertainment magnate

Philip Anschutz Philip Frederick Anschutz ( ; born December 28, 1939) is an American billionaire businessman who owns or controls companies in a variety of industries, including energy, railroads, real estate, sports, newspapers, movies, theaters, arenas and mu ...

. Denver-based billionaire Anschutz, who has an extensive history of developing and operating mineral, railroad, newsmedia and entertainment enterprises, is one of the largest private promoters of live events in the world, most notably soccer. Xanterra currently partners with the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

to provide lodging and other tourism services inside

National Parks A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual ...

History

A legacy of the 19th century

Fred Harvey Company The Fred Harvey Company was the owner of the Harvey House chain of restaurants, hotels and other hospitality industry businesses alongside railroads in the Western United States. It was founded in 1876 by Fred Harvey to cater to the growing n ...

, after the death of the founder's grandson in 1965, the company became affiliated with Chicago-based

JMB Realty JMB Realty was a real estate investment company based in Chicago. In 1993, after suffering during the early 1990s recession, the company spun off its retail properties as Urban Shopping Centers, Inc., which was acquired by Rodamco in 2000 and bro ...

, which acquired large Hawaii landholder

Amfac Amfac, Inc., formerly known as American Factors and originally H. Hackfeld and Company, was a land development company in Hawaii. Founded in 1849 as a retail and sugar business, it was considered one of the so-called Big Five companies in the T ...

in 1968 and broke it up into independent corporations including Amfac Resorts. In 1995, Amfac bought the large national parks management concession TW Recreational Services from Flagstar. In 2002, Amfac changed its corporate name to Xanterra after the bankruptcy of Amfac Hawaii. The name comes from a combination of Xanadu and terra (

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...

). The Anschutz Company bought Xanterra from JMB in 2008. Xanterra specializes in tourism in U.S.

National Park A national park is a natural park in use for conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual ...

s, and has a presence in

Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone ...

and

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mi ...

, and a number of other national and state parks. They are contracted by the

US National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

to provide lodging and services in these parks. Accommodations and pricing vary widely and include quality hotel rooms, lodges, rustic cabins, motel-style lodging and camping. Xanterra Parks & Resorts

The most notable of the original Harvey operations is the Grand Canyon South Rim concession, including the

El Tovar Hotel The El Tovar Hotel, also known simply as El Tovar, is a former Harvey House hotel situated directly on the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States. The hotel was designed by Charles Whittlesey, Chief Architect for the Atchison ...

Glacier National Park controversy

In March 2013, Anshutz Exploration Corp. announced that it would cease drilling on the Blackfeet Reservation. Five months later, Xanterra was awarded an important concessions contract in Glacier National Park. On August 13, 2013, the National Park Service announced that a 16-year contract would be issued to Xanterra despite the fact that the energy division had been fracking on lands adjacent to the eastern boundary of the park. Members of the Blackfeet Nation had been protesting the destruction of tribal lands for several years.

Grand Canyon Railway

Xanterra operates the

Grand Canyon Railway The Grand Canyon Railway is a heritage railroad which carries passengers between Williams, Arizona, and the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. The railroad, built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, was completed on September ...

in Arizona on the line originally built by the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

. Since their takeover of the operation in 2007, the line has removed its historic

steam locomotives A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the Tractive force#Rail vehicles, force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rar ...

and

ALCO The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

FA diesels from service in favor of their modern EMD F40FH diesels. Although, two of the FAs, #6793 and #6860, are still operational to pull the Williams Flyer train, and steam locomotives #29 and #4960, modified to run on

waste vegetable oil Vegetable oil can be used as an alternative fuel in diesel engines and in heating oil burners. When vegetable oil is used directly as a fuel, in either modified or unmodified equipment, it is referred to as straight vegetable oil (SVO) or pure p ...

, are also still used on special occasions.

References

External links

Xanterra website
{{Authority control Anschutz Corporation Travel and holiday companies of the United States Transport companies established in 1994 Companies based in Greenwood Village, Colorado 1994 establishments in Colorado 2008 mergers and acquisitions