Bright Angel Lodge is a hotel complex at the South Rim of the

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 m ...

Grand Canyon National Park Grand Canyon National Park, located in northwestern Arizona, is the 15th site in the United States to have been named as a national park. The park's central feature is the Grand Canyon, a gorge of the Colorado River, which is often conside ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

. Designed by architect Mary Jane Colter, the lodge is a complex of cabins around a central lodge building, directly on the edge of the canyon. The rustic lodge complex is a major

contributing building In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

in the Grand Canyon Village National Historic Landmark District. In 2022, Bright Angel Lodge is also a member of

Historic Hotels of America Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program accepts nominations and identifies hotels that have maintained their authenticity, sense of pla ...

, an official program of the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...

History

The first accommodation at the location was established by James Thurber in 1896 at the head of the

Bright Angel Trail The Bright Angel Trail is a hiking trail located in Grand Canyon National Park in the U.S. state of Arizona. Description The trail originates at Grand Canyon Village on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, descending 4380 feet to the Colorado ...

leading into the canyon. Thurber ran a

stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...

line from the Grandview area to this new location to the west in 1896, building a small wood-frame hotel. At about the same time,

Buckey O'Neill William Owen "Buckey" O'Neill (February 2, 1860 – July 1, 1898) was a sheriff, newspaper editor, miner, politician, Georgist, gambler and lawyer, mainly in Arizona. His nickname came from his tendency to "buck the tiger" (play contrary to th ...

built his cabin nearby, calling it O'Neill's Camp. Thurber acquired the O'Neill cabin at about the time O'Neill died in Cuba during the

Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (clock ...

. Thurber expanded the operation, establishing a tent camp for tourists and calling the complex the Bright Angel Hotel and the Bright Angel Camps. Thurber sold the Bright Angel operation to

Williams, Arizona Williams ( yuf-x-hav, Wii Gvʼul) is a city in Coconino County, Arizona, United States, located west of Flagstaff. Its population was 3,023 at the 2010 census. It lies on the routes of Historic Route 66 and Interstate 40. It is also the southe ...

hotelier Martin Buggeln, in time for the Grand Canyon Railroad to be completed to the South Rim in September. The railroad, which claimed most of the lands at the South Rim, including the Bright Angel site, cooperated with Buggeln while the railroad's El Tovar Hotel was being built immediately to the east of the Bright Angel Hotel, then bought out Buggeln when the new hotel was completed in 1905. The railroad renovated the older hotel and built cabins to replace the tents. In contrast to the lodgings at the El Tovar, which were marketed as a destination hotel, the Bright Angel facilities were aimed at a middle-class market. The Red Horse Station was originally built as a stage coach stop about south of the South Rim. When the railroad was extended to the South Rim, Ralph Cameron disassembled the post and moved it to the South rim and rebuilt it just to the west of the Buckey O'Neill Cabin in 1902, adding a wood frame second floor to the log first floor and calling it Cameron's Hotel. From 1907 it housed the park's post office. Bright Angel Cabin 6160-63 NPS1

By the 1930s the Bright Angel operation needed renovation. 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 ...

, which owned the Grand Canyon Railroad and the South Rim concessions, asked architect Mary Colter to design a replacement. Colter's initial designs resembled her

Hermit's Rest Hermits Rest is a structure built in 1914 at the western end of Hermit Road at the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States. The Hermit Trail, a hiking trail that extends to the Colorado River, begins about ¼ mile beyond the s ...

and

Lookout Studio Lookout Studio, known also as The Lookout, is a stone building located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, within Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. It is part of the Grand Canyon Village Historic District, and is part of the Mary Jane C ...

structures, both located nearby. The Park Service did not approve of such extensive use of stone for the new lodgings, and Colter revised the design to wood-frame construction, Colter kept the O'Neill Cabin and the Red Horse Cabin (removing its incongruous second floor) and replaced the tent cabins with new rustic cabins of log and local stone construction, completed in 1935. Colter took particular pains to integrate the new complex into the landscape, using a scale model to study the design.

Description

The lodge is a large structure with a simple shallow-pitched gable roof. The roof overhangs at the main entry to form a gabled porch supported by peeled log posts. Colter used shed-roofed appendages to create a layered effect for the mass of the main lodge. Interior finishes included hand-adzed logs, adobe and local limestone. The stone fireplace materials reproduce the strata found in the Grand Canyon along the Bright Angel Trail in their correct sequence from bottom to top.NRHP nomination, continuation sheet, p. 8 The semi-detached cabins are laid out in the space between the lodge and the canyon's rim, with some directly overlooking the canyon. Cabins were furnished with antiques and reproductions hand-picked by Colter. The lodge's cocktail lounge features murals by

Hopi The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the United ...

artist

Fred Kabotie Fred Kabotie (c. 1900–1986) was a celebrated Hopi painter, silversmith, illustrator, potter, author, curator and educator. His native name in the Hopi language is Naqavoy'ma which translates to Day After Day. Background and education Fred Kabo ...

Historic designation

The Bright Angel Lodge and cabins are significant contributing structures in the Grand Canyon Village National Historic Landmark District. The historic district, created in 1975 without Bright Angel Lodge being included, was expanded in 1982 to include the Bright Angel Lodge and its cabins, according to the 1996-dated National Historic Landmark Nomination document. It had initially been left out of the nomination as it had not yet reached the 50-year age threshold, but the 1982 nomination made plain that the Bright Angel complex had such exceptional significance that it was worthy of waiving the 50-year requirement.

References

History

Description

Historic designation

References

External links