El Tovar - A Grand Hotel on the Edge

Photo: Grand Canyon National Park, CC BY 2.0 (cropped)

A stop on Grand Canyon South Rim, a free self-guided tour.

El Tovar opened in January 1905, a few years after the Santa Fe Railway laid tracks to the South Rim in 1901 and began delivering tourists by the trainload. The railway's chief architect, Charles Whittlesey, built it with local limestone below and logs and dark-stained Oregon pine above, part rustic lodge and part European resort. The Fred Harvey Company ran it, bringing fine dining to a spot far from any city.

The name honors Pedro de Tovar, a member of Coronado's Spanish expedition who heard Hopi reports of a great river in 1540. Those reports led Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, guided by Hopi men, to the rim that same year, the first Europeans known to see the canyon. Theodore Roosevelt, who protected the canyon as a national monument in 1908, stayed here in 1911 and 1913.

Step onto the porch and notice the log and stone details. This is a working hotel, so keep voices low around guest areas.

Getting here: Follow the Rim Trail west past Verkamp's Visitor Center; El Tovar is the large dark lodge just beyond it on the rim.

Did you know?: Trains still arrive just below El Tovar at the Grand Canyon Depot, a log station from 1910 served by the Grand Canyon Railway from Williams.

Photo op: Stand on the rim path in front of the hotel and frame its turret and dark walls with the canyon at your side.

Nearby: Restrooms and water at Verkamp's Visitor Center next door; El Tovar has a dining room and lounge, so check current hours and reservations.

More on Wikipedia: El Tovar Hotel · Pedro de Tovar · Theodore Roosevelt

El Tovar - A Grand Hotel on the Edge

Stops on this tour