Transcript


NARRATOR:
From the depths of the Grand Canyon to the sculpted sandstone of the Colorado plateau, Northern Arizona is a land of uncommon beauty. Early in the twentieth century the Union Pacific and Santa Fe railways built grand lodges to welcome those who journeyed across the country. Three in Arizona reflect the grandeur of their surroundings and recall a bygone era. These are the lodges of Arizona's high country. Funding Credit: “Arizona Lodges: The High Country” is made possible by the KAET program partners, friends of Channel 8 who provide additional gifts to support the Arizona Collection.

NARRATOR:
The Grand Canyon embodies the wild, open spirit of the American West. Its vastness and scale challenge human comprehension. Theodore Roosevelt called it the sight every American should see. Forming part of the border between northern Arizona and southern Utah, the canyon is located in one of America’s most remote and hostile desert areas. El Tovar, situated on the south rim, is a fitting addition to the canyon. Completed by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1905, this wood frame time capsule from the Victorian age offers a warm contrast to the hostile desert surroundings.

JAN BALSOM:
The canyon is such a vast place. I mean — and when you’re coming from virtually anywhere, you don’t have any perspective of distance, you know, because you’ve never seen anything this big. You look at these buildings and they provide sort of that touchstone for our own culture because we’re in an environment and a landscape that is so totally foreign to most of us.

NARRATOR:
Even in an age of modern travel, the Grand Canyon is still an isolated place. A hundred years ago this remoteness meant that very few Americans were able to get to it. That changed as a burgeoning rail network was winding its way across the continent.

AL RICHMOND:
The railroads were very instrumental in developing the West. In many ways, populated the West, and it was very instrumental in getting national parks established that we have in the West, particularly Grand Canyon National Park.

NARRATOR:
Native cultures knew of the canyon for millennia, but it was the explorations of John Wesley Powell, beginning in 1869, that opened up the area for European Americans. His cadre of artists, writers, and mapmakers gave the American public its first glimpse of the canyon. When early mining efforts failed, tourism seemed a more viable way for the railroads to exploit the canyon. The Santa Fe Railroad completed a spur rail line to the south rim in 1901.

AL RICHMOND:
And when they reached there, there was nothing but tents, log hotels and these kinds of things. That’s when they began to develop the south rim of the Grand Canyon, and in doing so, they built over 600 structures. The Santa Fe, the Union Pacific, all of the railroads that were in the western United States, they were businesses. And to make money, they had to bring people to the West, and to bring people to the West, they had to have attractions. They would generate pamphlets. Extensive brochures. Of course, they were trying to sell tickets, but these booklets brought people to the West.

NARRATOR:
When the Santa Fe Railroad opened El Tovar in 1905, nearly all visitors arrived by train. Today visitors can choose to arrive the same way. The Grand Canyon Railway travels 80 miles from Williams, Arizona, to the south rim on the same track used by the Santa Fe. It provides a sense of the turn of the century arrival experience.

AL RICHMOND:
Riding the rails today, a hundred years after this railroad was built, is very similar to that time. Very little has changed. They are a comfortable, peaceful way to travel. We can go to the south rim of the Grand Canyon in complete comfort, just sitting here and watching history go by and enjoying a nice train ride.

NARRATOR:
The Grand Canyon Railway delivers passengers to the only standing log train depot still in use in America.

CONDUCTOR:
Watch the ground. Have a good time.

TOURIST:
Okay, thank you, sir.

CONDUCTOR:
You betcha. Take a lot of pictures of that big hole in the ground.

NARRATOR:
Here, just as a century ago, their eyes are drawn upward to the beautiful El Tovar. El Tovar was the vision of Illinois architect Charles Whittlesey. He designed buildings throughout the West, but this is his only structure in a national park. Built of Northwestern firs and local limestone, El Tovar combines the styles of an enormous European villa and log cabin. More like a hunting lodge than desert hotel, its wood joinery, varied roof line, and protruding log beams might look more at home in a mountain setting.

JIM GARRISON:
If you read when the building opened, it gives these references to Swiss and Norwegian architecture, and it’s the craftsman romantic movement of Europe being brought to America and the Americans trying to decide what is the appropriate architecture and what would their customers be looking for in a natural setting in what becomes a national park.

JAN BALSOM: It was certainly a very welcoming destination for folks who would travel for days to get to this very isolated place. You know, I mean, we’re out in the middle of nowhere. So the structure itself was very, very welcoming and very familiar to a lot of the visitors who had been traveling west on the railroad. When I walk up to the lodge, I just want to sit on the swings outside, and I pretend it’s 1905 and I’m the only one there and I’m just sitting and swinging and enjoying the quiet and the solitude of the canyon. And it’s just wonderful.

NARRATOR:
The lobby at El Tovar is a hunting lodge personified. Dark-stained paneling compliments the heavy beams and rafters, and a stone fireplace in the corner completes the Americanized Euro-chateau feeling. And rounding out the hunting motif, several animal heads decorate the walls, although few represent wildlife found anywhere near the Grand Canyon.

JIM GARRISON:
The lobby has rustic elements, natural use of logs. You find other use of wood in other stylistic ways that tend to look like a Swiss or Norway villa. The use of natural logs for posts to hold up the roofs and the use of slab log construction carrying the outside into the inside, it’s actually quite dark in the lobby.

NARRATOR:
Above the far end of the lobby, the mezzanine lounge sits behind the octagonal balcony with its decorative jig sawn balustrades. This was once the ladies lounge. Here, in the classical manor of the Victorian era, women would retire after meals to chat. Today, it offers access to El Tovar’s 78 guest rooms. The lodge features two adjoining dining rooms. One, a converted porch, features massive picture windows with views of the canyon. The main dining room is flanked by two stone fireplaces and is lit by distinctive copper fixtures added in a 1979 remodeling. When the lodge opened, the dining room was managed by the company which handled all matters Epicurean for the Santa Fe Railroad: The Fred Harvey Company. Aided by his famous “Harvey Girl” waitresses, Fred Harvey pioneered the concept of quality food on the go.

CAROL NAILLE:
He was like the original person to design fast food. He developed a system where people could go in, sit down and eat a nice four- or five-course meal in about 25 minutes at a train stop. There were 15 hotels and 47 restaurants that he managed for the Santa Fe Railroad. And it was his service and the quality of the food and training of the staff that made the Santa Fe popular.

NARRATOR:
Perhaps Harvey’s biggest contribution to the south rim of the Grand Canyon is the fact that his company hired Mary Colter. She was originally employed as a decorator, but soon proved herself a most innovative and progressive architect. Interested in interpreting the cultural heritage of the region rather than mimicking European styles, Colter designed several buildings along the south rim, including the Hopi House, right across from El Tovar.

JIM GARRISON:
Function, structure and beauty were the things most architects revolve their concepts and themes around. Mary Colter added a story line. She said, “What if Native Americans had a building on the canyon? What if the Native Americans built a tower on the canyon? What if there was a place where you looked out over the canyon at Lookout Studio?”

HENRY KARPINSKI:
Mary Colter was probably the most remarkable woman that most people have never heard of from the early part of the century. She was an architect at a time when women were not expected to be architects. Someone said that she’s almost an exact contemporary to Frank Lloyd Wright in that they were both born around the same time and died around the same time and both were temperamental, short people who built exquisite buildings that leak.

JAN BALSOM:
One of the things about Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was her fascination with American Indians. Archeology and American Indian art. One of Colter’s last buildings at Grand Canyon was the Desert View Watchtower. It was completed in 1932, but, you know, we have a building that basically the foundations are a ruin, and it comes out of the canyon itself. You’ve got four levels in the tower, each one emerging into another level as you go up. The second floor of the tower being the Hopi Room, essentially, where Fred Kabotie, who is a Hopi artist, pretty much telling one of the creation stories for Hopi with his murals and his drawings. Everything authentic. You look at the El Tovar and right across the parking lot is the Hopi House. They’re very, very different structures and it’s hard to kind of figure out why they’re there together. But it was for that different experience. There you have it. You’ve got your comfortable hotel, and then right across the way, you can experience Indian culture. You’ve got Hopis living there making pottery. You’ve got dances going on. So you’re — you’re able to provide to your visitors both things right there. Colter, as an architect, developed a style that would later become what I think is rustic architecture. She isn’t credited with it, but again, you’ll see that sort of a genesis of what became rustic architecture for the National Park Service happen with Colter’s earlier buildings. She was just this force, this vision, and her works at Grand Canyon are national historic landmarks that — you know, they’re a real testament to the work that she had done as a woman, as an architect, and as a designer.

NARRATOR:
The buildings of two distinctly different architects provide a similar contrast along the rim. The Native-inspired designs of Mary Colter and the European homage of Charles Whittlesey’s El Tovar reflect different approaches to taming this wild territory. They offer comfort and familiarity in concert with the overpowering vistas of the canyon.

JAN BALSOM:
You’ve got this backdrop that’s very unreal of the Grand Canyon, but then you’ve developed a very personal village with walkways that connect the different buildings. So you’ve got everything connecting itself in very much a landscape-designed fashion. Grand Canyon is probably the best remaining example of any of that. The 1924 village plan is pretty much still there.

NARRATOR:
In January of two thousand five, El Tovar turned one hundred years old. To preserve it for future generations the building was closed for three months while roofers, carpenters, and craftsman of all disciplines completed a 4.5 million dollar renovation.

BOB BAKER:
We did everything from the roof on down, new roof, bath rooms were completely gutted, replaced bath tubs, toilets, sinks, all tile in the bathrooms, soft goods, case goods, replaced, there’s not a piece of carpet in the building that’s original, its all been replaced, the bldg’s been entirely painted inside, the exterior was painted last year, its all been replaced. My hope is that this building will stand for another hundred years and another hundred years after that.

HENRY KARPINSKI:
There has to be places like this so that we remember what the West was. You know, a lot of folks come here and they take away something they weren’t even looking for. The fact is they walk away feeling something that they didn’t bargain for. They recharged. They’re really connected again to wide-open spaces, to wonder. Awesome is the word that’s used way too much. This is awesome. This is awe-inspiring.

NARRATOR:
Santa Fe’s El Tovar would be the only railroad lodge in the western canyons for the next two decades. By the mid twenties rival Union Pacific Railroad was poised to build its own grand lodge …on the canyon’s north rim. The move was a response to a direct request by the energetic first director of the newly formed national park service, Stephen Mather.

TOM HARADEN:
Mather did believe that for people to support the national park idea and these magnificent places, they had to be accessible to people. The Union Pacific Railroad and others throughout the West saw building lines and taking people to national parks as good business. So Mather encouraged them to build spur lines to national parks and then, ultimately, lodges and restaurants and places where people could stay once they arrived.

AL RICHMOND:
This was the nature of the railroads that were in the West. You just didn’t create an east?west road. You had to reach all the areas that were adjacent to it. And so they began branching south into southern Utah, and that line ran through Cedar City, Utah. And this was in close proximity to Bryce and Zion national parks, and also not very far from the north rim of the Grand Canyon.

NARRATOR:
The Grand Canyon’s more remote north rim was being developed into a national park but getting people there was a logistical challenge. Eager to compete with the Santa Fe, the Union Pacific Railroad came up with an innovative plan. Under its subsidiary, the Utah Parks Company, the railroad would build lodges at Bryce and Zion Canyon in Southern Utah and at the north rim and link them with motor coaches running from a train stop at Cedar City, Utah. The coaches would take visitors to each park in turn. They called it the Loop Tour, and all three lodges became known as Loop Tour lodges. Today, many people follow the old Loop Tour route, visiting the parks and lodges in the same order. Grand Canyon Lodge was the middle stop of the tour, located in one of the most remote areas of northern Arizona. It was once a drive of many hours, until the completion of the mile-long Mount Carmel Tunnel that cuts through some of the hazardous mountain passages. Stephen Mather felt that the loop tour lodges needed a different approach than a single, grand hotel like El Tovar. Instead, he insisted that all three parks be a community of rustic overnight log cabins with a day lodge as the centerpiece. To fulfill this vision, Mather turned to a man whose name would become synonymous with rustic park service architecture: Gilbert Stanley Underwood.

JIM GARRISON:
There was this concept developing as to what should be the architecture in our national parks, and Underwood was there at the very beginning of this process. And the designs of Underwood in the parks in the West are certainly ones that bring a strong sense of architectural design and this idea of park service rustic architecture.

NARRATOR:
Underwood’s great genius at the north rim is that he manages to conceal one of the biggest holes in the world.

TOM CARTER:
Underwood’s vision was really to bring people up to the lodge, and have them leave their buses and come into the front entrance of the lodge, into the lobby, without seeing the Grand Canyon. And then they saw this light emanating out of a lower room and saw huge windows there. So they went down the stairs and then they went out into this, what we call the sunroom, and all of a sudden — boom — there it was.

TOURIST:
What do you think? Look at that view. That’s a long way down, isn’t it?

NARRATOR:
Early development was slow in coming to the north rim. Though only eight miles across the canyon from El Tovar on the south rim, the two lodges are separated by hundreds of miles of mountain roads. Even today, it is much less developed than its sister to the south. Envious of the Santa Fe’s success with El Tovar, the Union Pacific Railroad was eager to build accommodations in this virtually untouched region. The result was one of the finest examples of rustic architecture ever built in a national park.

TOM CARTER:
The original lodge was like a Spanish fort. And it had a very high tower. Maybe Underwood absorbed some of the early history of the Southwest, of the Spanish coming in here and — and then trying to find, you know, fabulous cities of gold, and maybe that’s — some of that romance was in the building itself.

NARRATOR:
Underwood’s use of local materials and the lodge’s natural blending into the rock of the canyon has prompted some to suggest that perhaps this legendary architect of the 20th Century may have been influenced by that overachieving decorator from the south rim, Mary Colter.

TOM CARTER:
I think that Underwood was influenced greatly by Mary Colter’s work on the south rim because she integrated her structures that she built for the Santa Fe Railroad with the rim rock itself, and it’s the same here on the north rim; that the limestone cliffs that the lodge is built upon are integrated into the building itself.

NARRATOR:
Completed in 1928, the Grand Canyon Lodge was a triumph of rustic architecture. It was, however, to be short?lived. In a repeat of a story heard far too often in the history of these lodges, it was lost in the fall of 1932 in what is still the largest structural fire in the Grand Canyon’s history. Carl Croft was a small boy when it happened, and his father was the chief of maintenance. It’s a sad irony of his life that he happened to witness tragic fires that burned down two of the three Loop Tour lodges.

CARL CROFT:
Dad took me out the day after the fire. I can still remember today. It was still smoldering. All the wood was gone and the only thing left were those tall stone columns just standing there and the smoke coming out of the — what was left of the fire. And they just looked like ghosts. Real sad ghosts looking at the fire. It was — it was — everybody was real sad. That was really a beautiful building. By far the best building that the railroad built in the national parks.

NARRATOR:
The lodge was a total loss. Two years later, rebuilding began and the new lodge opened in 1936. It shares much of the original’s vision, but with some significant differences. The watchtower is gone, and the original jagged rooflines were replaced with a traditional pitched roof.

TOM CARTER:
The new lodge is completely different from the old lodge in the exterior, but the interior is almost exactly the same as the original lodge. And that’s really an incredible fact that they were able to recreate the interior of the lodge just the same way that Underwood had designed it. The only room that really is changed is this auditorium. This room in the lodge is the one room that’s an improvement over the original lodge in this auditorium, with the open beams. Because before, in the original lodge, the maids’ rooms were above and it would have been a flat ceiling. With the open beams, it’s much more of an airy, open feeling. And the decorations on the beams are from an artist that worked with Mary Colter on the south rim, Fred Kabotie.

NARRATOR:
Like its sisters along the Loop Tour, the Grand Canyon Lodge is a central day lodge surrounded by cabins. There are 80 in all in various configurations, and all maintain the legacy of Underwood’s design lost with the original lodge. Only two cabins burned in the 1932 fire.

DON BOTTA:
This is an example of one of our treasures in the lodge. This is one of our rim view cabins. The room features two queen-sized beds. We have a working gas fireplace here. And we have some spectacular views outside the window here of the canyon itself. These are some of the original timbers that Gilbert Stanley Underwood used in the original construction.

NARRATOR:
With guest accommodations taken care of by the cabins, the lodge is free to be a recreational and dining area.

DON BOTTA:
My favorite room without a doubt is the dining room. The dining room has spectacular views. There’s about six windows. They’re just about from floor to ceiling. And every table has this — a magnificent view of the canyon itself. The ceiling rises to about 30 feet and the peaks are surrounded impressively by these limestone walls. The timbers in the lodge structure itself are ponderosa pine. They were harvested in the ‘20s and ‘30s from the area just 70, 80 miles north of here and that’s what was used throughout the lodge. Also in these timbers you have some artwork. Some of the accents of these motifs kind of mimic some of the Native petroglyphs that are seen throughout the canyon. Also, too, there are some very heavy brass accents that are structural and decorative at the same time, so I think you really get a feel of the architect and his dream of blending it into the — the canyon walls and at the same time providing guests, every guest in that dining room, just spectacular views.

NARRATOR:
In the sunroom, large picture windows frame the canyon like an enormous piece of art; its mesas and formations seeming a continuous painting split into three murals on the walls of the lodge.

DON BOTTA:
The sunroom’s just this room with large windows that overlook the canyon. It provides an opportunity throughout the day, no matter what kind of weather, to view the canyon. Both through sunsets and sunrises.

TOM CARTER:
People’s reactions when they come in the lodge and they see the sunroom isn’t very verbal. I think it’s more physical. It’s more a body reaction; that they get drawn and single?mindedly go towards the view. The thing is that you can’t take it all in. And you can’t take it for very long, and so they back off. And even in my own experience is if you can take your eyes off the canyon for a while and then gaze at it again, you start seeing detail. But if you take it all at once, it’s overwhelming.

BRUCE AIKEN:
The Grand Canyon does look unreal, and the reason it looks unreal is because there isn’t anything else on the planet that looks like it. And when your eye views it for the first time, you know you’re looking at something very, very unusual.

DON BOTTA:
We have two verandas, both an east and west veranda. A gathering place for our guests to view the sunrise and the sunset, and it gathers many, many of our guests.

TOM HARADEN:
Evening in the lodge is probably the best time of the day because people are more relaxed and people are out on the patio and they’re sipping cocktails or they’re — they have their feet propped up on the wall, and the families are out there and everybody’s mellow. There’s more contrast and more color so it’s a more appealing time for your senses to take in the Grand Canyon. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere.

PHIL ZARI:
When we first got to the lodge, I think it was an overwhelming experience. I mean, just looking into the lodge and seeing the — the architecture and — and the beamed ceilings and the — you know, the chandeliers. And then coming into the sitting room and seeing the windows and the vista, it just kind of takes your breath away.

NARRATOR:
As with the other canyon parks, the most popular activities at the north rim are hiking and climbing. However, the excessive daytime temperatures in the canyon, and the harsh desert environment can make it a harrowing proposition.

JEFF D’ARPA:
North rim hiking, it’s extreme. Maybe 400 searches and rescues a year. And when you look into the canyon here, you realize that it’s unforgiving, and you can get lost and you can get dehydrated. You can get heat exposure. There’s a million ways that the canyon can really punish you.

NARRATOR:
It’s only natural that a place as wild and beautiful as the Grand Canyon should be an inspiration to artists. In the nearly 30 years Bruce Aikens has lived in the canyon, he’s become a bit of an institution.

BRUCE AIKEN:
The Grand Canyon provides probably the most unique inspirational view that an artist can have. It can be inspiring. It can be humbling. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the most stimulating thing on the planet. I can tell you that running out of images at the Grand Canyon is like, you know, saying you’re going to run out of people to look at in New York. You know, I mean, it’s just not going to happen.

NARRATOR:
In many ways, it is artists that we have to thank for the Grand Canyon National Park. When John Wesley Powell first began to explore and map this region, it was the paintings by various artists who accompanied him that gave most people their first awareness of the indescribable views found here. Among the best known of these was a man named Thomas Moran.

BRUCE AIKEN:
Thomas Moran came on the second expedition to the Grand Canyon and produced paintings. And it’s the paintings that Thomas Moran did during that trip that brought the image of the Grand Canyon to the people of the world. He was, in my estimation, one the most important historical figures in the creation and formation of the National Park System as we know it today.

NARRATOR:
As beautiful as the paintings are, there is nothing that compares to the experience of seeing the canyon in person. The shifting patterns of light and shadow create an ever-changing spectacle that cannot be reproduced. The canyon and lodge are intertwined, joined together by rock that is the foundation of both. An upside down mountain carved out of the earth by the Colorado River, graced by a wood and rock monolith carved by the hand of man.

DON BOTTA:
This park, this land, represents one of the treasures of the United States. The lodge itself is another treasure in the sense that it not only is an architectural treasure, but it provides for every walk of life to enjoy this park.

BRUCE AIKEN:
Well, it gives the visitors a great experience. This lodge is a part of Grand Canyon National Park that our visitors take away with them and they remember this place. People never forget their experience at Grand Canyon Lodge. It’s just a great place to be.

NARRATOR:
200 miles southeast of the Grand Canyon the ponderosa pines of the north rim give way to the grassy steppes of north eastern Arizona. Here lies the town of Winslow. Twenty-five years after opening El Tovar, and only two years after rival Union Pacific completed Grand Canyon Lodge, the Santa Fe Railway opened one of the finest railroad lodges ever built…La Posada.

ARNOLD BERKE:
La Posada was the last of the great Harvey houses to be built the last to survive.

MARIE LAMAR:
The La Posada is the crown jewel. Not only is it an esteemed building by a noted architect, Mary Colter but it's very inspirational and motivating.

TINA MION
And there's something very magical about this space. It's so open space-wise that it frees your imagination.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
For the city of Winslow this is the center of the city… everything happens here at La Posada. For the traveler it’s an oasis, it’s really something unexpected, to be driving down the highway and come upon this magnificent Spanish hacienda, and for me of course, it’s my home.

NARRATOR:
Winslow is a railroad town. In the 1880’s when the railroad was plotting its southern transcontinental route it needed a place with an abundant year round water supply to quench the thirst of its’ massive steam trains. It found such a place at the confluence of the Little Colorado and Clear Creek and Winslow was born.

NARRATOR:
By the turn of the century Fred Harvey Hotels known as “Harvey Houses” had been built all along the Santa Fe mainline, from Kansas City to Los Angeles, including a simple brick structure in Winslow.

NARRATOR:
But as the twentieth century unfolded rail passengers began to demand more sophisticated accommodations. Grand hotels such as Charles Whittlesey’s El Tovar at the Grand Canyon, and his Alvarado in Albuquerque promised a complete southwestern cultural experience. Winslow’s dilapidated Harvey House could no longer compete.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
And the business was growing so fast in the southwest, and they had Mary Colter around, and they figured that they could in fact make Winslow like Santa Fe. Winslow would be the big city in northern Arizona. It wasn't going to be a Flagstaff. It wasn't going to be a Sedona. It was going to be Winslow. So they thought they needed a really first class destination resort hotel here.

NARRATOR:
In January 1929, Santa Fe announced that Mary Colter would design and build a new Winslow Harvey House. Much as she had done at Hopi House Colter conjured up a story to help her imagine the structure. Her tale is that of a Spanish Don. He arrives here in the early eighteen hundreds- builds a cattle ranch and home… Over the years the ranch is passed to his heirs who build new wings onto the house until a grand hacienda is born. However, by 1930 the family fortune is gone. They must relinquish their home to the Harvey Company who promises to maintain the proud estate of La Posada. La Posada opened on May 15, 1930 and all who entered it were transported into Colter’s dream world of Old Mexico.

ARNOLD BERKE:
It was and is like you’re entering a house where the owners had just left, and you’re wondering when they might be back.

ALLAN AFFELDT
It was also from an engineering point of view a very modern building. Its a cast concrete building, which in the late '20s was coming into vogue. Most of the walls are about 20 inches thick. That's 20 inches of concrete. That's very important when you are built next to a railroad track, because you can sit and see the trains go by without hearing them. The other thing that's modern about it is just the layout of the space, it's just broad arches from the ballroom to the library to the lobby to the foyer. So the space just flows.

ARNOLD BERKE:
For Mary Colter this was her largest most elaborate building, her most Hispanic building, and her favorite building.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
She did all of the interiors. She designed or hand-selected all of the furniture. Her only landscape plan was for La Posada. She designed the china. She designed the maid’s costumes. The only Harvey hotel with a distinctive outfit was La Posada. So this really was her baby.

NARRATOR:
The Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey company hailed La Posada as an artistic achievement. It also chided Colter for going 1.5 million dollars over budget. A telegram they sent to the Harvey Company read…“Congratulations on the new building, La Posada. Hope income exceeds estimates as much as the building costs did.”

ARNOLD BERKE:
That telegram indirectly refers to the fairly recent stock market crash, which of course wasn’t planned for so they were especially concerned with what the income would be in this new elaborate hotel …would people, given the economy, come here?

NARRATOR:
Despite the concerns many felt La Posada was poised to be the grandest of all the Harvey Houses. In the early 1930’s adventuresome travelers did come west …by train.

MARIE LAMAR:
Rail travel was wonderful, but it took what, four, five days to get from Chicago to Los Angeles. You could get pretty weary of being confined to a train.


ALLAN AFFELDT:
So imagine what it was like arriving here in 1930 you would have gone for days across the desert then of course this huge mirage this fabulous hacienda with acres of gardens.

RUBY MCHOOD:
When the trains were in, it was a busy place. It was just really a hurried place, because customers on the train had 30 minutes to walk into the dining room, order their meals, eat their meals and walk back to the train.

NARRATOR:
La Posada guests would soon include the rich and famous. Over the years Albert Einstein, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Bob Hope, Jane Russell, and even Shirley Temple rested here on their way to and from Los Angeles. It became a favorite hideaway of Charles Lindberg who designed the Winslow airport and Howard Hughes whose upstart TWA stopped regularly in Winslow.

NARRATOR:
Despite La Posada’s comforts many could not wait to see the sites. In the southwest, Fred Harvey ran the “Indian Detours” allowing the “dudes”, as tourists were called, to climb aboard a “Harvey Car” and head out to explore the wild west.

MARIE LAMAR:
You could go south to the Mogollon Rim, you could go to the Grand Canyon, to the Hopi reservations, Navajo reservation. You could travel northeastern Arizona.

NARRATOR:
One detour destination took the dudes across twenty miles of road less high desert to the edge of Meteor Crater. Today visitors can retrace their steps and gaze down into the nearly mile wide and 550-foot hole in the earth. The crater was created fifty thousand years ago when a giant meteor weighing millions of tons pierced the earth’s atmosphere and slammed into its crust. One of the most popular Harvey Detours was a journey into the canyon lands and mesas of the Hopi and Navajo. Some detours traveled as far as Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly. Next on the Detour itinerary, the wild and beautiful Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

RITA GARCIA:
You had to be a pretty seriously devoted individual, pretty venturesome spirit in order to come out because you still in the 1930s had very few paved roads. And, it would be a very long and bumpy and usually a very warm trip because they didn't have air conditioning. It would look like an alien landscape, almost like you had come to another planet, because you had never seen anything quite like this before, and here your eyes are seeing something that looks like a tree that's been knocked down but at the same time when you reached out and touched it your hand tells you that it's a rock now. Something very unique and special.

NARRATOR:
Soon, it was back aboard the “Harvey Car” for the hot and dusty ride back to the cool confines of La Posada.

RITA GARCIA:
Think what a relief it must have been, that one spot of genteel tranquility and customer service, that bit of what was familiar, more like back home in the sea of the wild, wild west.

NARRATOR:
As the nineteen thirties drew on the country slipped into the Great Depression. Fewer travelers were on Northern Arizona’s roads and rails looking for fun and adventure. At La Posada the first sign of trouble came when Fred Harvey stopped operating the Indian Detours.

RUBY MCHOOD:
People didn't order big meals. They didn't order special things. They seldom would order an extra desert. And your tips were nickels and dimes, if you got a tip.

NARRATOR:
More of those who did make the journey west did so in their own automobile. Now people could go where they wanted when they wanted. They didn’t have to plan their trips by railroad schedules or around Fred Harvey houses.

NARRATOR:
The days of rail passengers flowing through La Posada to explore the west were gone. But soon thousands would pass through its halls on their way to a far more serious destination. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the US immediately began mobilizing for war in the pacific. That meant moving men and machinery to the west coast. Throughout the war years troop trains stopped in Winslow and hundreds of servicemen flooded La Posada for a quick meal. Thousands of meals a day were served. The soldiers then marched back to the train and continued their journey westward to the battlefields of the Pacific.

GENE SCHMITZ:
Gee, there was hundreds of troop trains, all hours of the day and night. They were kids. They were just kids, gee. Probably the first time away from home… I didn't have too many coming home. I had more going over than coming home.

NARRATOR:
Those boys won the war and those who came back needed jobs. Some came to Winslow. By the early nineteen fifties the railroad freight business was booming. Winslow was now a bustling town of 6,500 and La Posada was it’s social center.

MARIE LAMAR:
Anything worth celebrating, came to La Posada.

DOROTHY HUNT: If you ever had company come and took them out to dinner, you came to the La Posada. The elks clubs and Shriners clubs would come. The La Posada would have dances and of course, everybody came. Everybody in town came.

RUBY MCHOOD:
There is a picture somewhere around here where they find my husband in it. And I know he didn't go to a dance by himself, but I don't know where I am in the picture.

MARIE LAMAR:
In the 1950s …It was still serving the community. It was still an elegant place. It just wasn't profitable. By then, Route 66 was completed, and the people who had saved their money during World War II for the first time in their lives could buy a brand new car and so what would you do when you bought a brand new car? You travel Route 66 to see the nation. … gasoline stations, neon lights, swimming pools….

ALLAN AFFELDT:
They built all of these Route 66 motor courts in the '40s and '50s. So to stay at La Posada was $5 to $12, and to stay at one of the motor courts was a dollar.

GENE SCHMITZ:
And La Posada tried to stay open but there was too many restaurants, motels, hotels, built along the roads. So they finally shut her down.

DOROTHY HUNT:
I was just sick. I really was just sick.

RUBY MCHOOD:
I was horrified. It was a depressing feeling. There were too many memories here.

MARIE LAMAR:
It was mourned in this community, like the death of a family member. We lost something, and we weren't able to say exactly what it was for a while.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
In 1957, they closed the building, and in 1959 they auctioned off all of the furniture. Mary Colter was living in retirement in Santa Fe. They had already torn down her El Navajo hotel in Gallup. They asked her how she felt about closing La Posada, and she said, “Now I know there is such a thing as living too long.” Colter died believing that her work would all be wiped out.

NARRATION:
For the Santa Fe La Posada was a white elephant. The railroad tried to sell it but no one was interested.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
So what they decided to do, since they couldn’t sell La Posada is they would convert it into their Arizona headquarters. So for 40 years, from 1960 until 1997, this building was Arizona headquarters for the Santa Fe Railway.

DAN LUTZICK:
For them, if you are going to have an office space, you want dropped ceilings, fluorescent lights, nice, right angles on your walls. So, in they came and up went the dropped ceilings. Most of the arches were filled in. They even, in a number of places, filled over the flagstone floor, the nice uneven handset flagstone floor, and they put down linoleum tile or 9 by 9 tiles over that to get a nice straight even floor.

MARIE LAMAR:
It became to most people just a dusty old building.

NARRATOR:
Winslow would soon face another challenge. In 1979, the last stretch of Interstate 40 was completed- replacing Route 66. Travelers could now drive through Northern Arizona without ever visiting its towns.

JIM BOLES:
When Interstate 40 went around us and businesses began to migrate out, it got to the point that you could eat your lunch in the middle of the street and not worry about getting run over. So effectively, the downtown died.

MARIE LAMAR:
In the meantime, there were buildings being razed throughout the country that were no longer used by railroads. This happened in Albuquerque. It happened in Gallup. They destroyed them.

NARRATOR:
Marie LaMar and her friend Janice Griffith joined forces to fight for La Posada.

MARIE LAMAR:
If there were more than three people who wanted to listen to us speak, we stood and talked to them about the value of La Posada. We gave tours through La Posada, dusty as east side was, and people were very polite to us, but so many of them doubted our sanity.

NARRATION:
Janice and Marie also organized a group of volunteers who cared for La Posada’s withering grounds. The group was dubbed “The Gardening Angels.” But what was really needed was money. Largely due to their efforts in 1993 the city was awarded federal funds to purchase and begin restoring the building. Now all they had to do was come up with matching funds and raise the estimated eleven and a half million dollars to complete the restoration.

MARIE LAMAR:
And we put the city government in cardiac arrest. I can guarantee you. “What do we do with this money?” “It will bankrupt us.” And, of course, in the meantime, enter Allan Affeldt, a total stranger from California.

NARRATION:
Affeldt, a 38-year-old graduate student, noticed La Posada on a National Trust for Historic Preservation list of endangered buildings. He began advising Janice, Marie, and the city as to how to save the building. Eventually he decided to take on the task himself.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
So, I abandoned my university work and started negotiating with the railway. That, of course, led to a three-year ordeal. We thought it would be a very simple real estate transaction. They want to get rid of the building; I want to buy it; write the check. Three years it took to do that deal.

NARRATION:
In 1997, Affeldt and his wife, artist Tina Mion, became the owners of La Posada… they were also now responsible for restoring the 73,000 square foot hacienda.

TINA MION:
So, we came in on April 1st in a blinding snowstorm. And, the trains that first night, I felt they were going completely through my head. Now I don't hear them at all.


NARRATION:
Allan, Tina, Tina’s brother Keith, and Allan’s former racquetball partner, artist Dan Lutzick began tearing out the sixties era walls, floors, and equipment.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
One of the very most satisfying things is demolition, because unlike negotiation, which is three years, demolition, you take a sledge hammer and you knock out an arch and two hours later, wow, look at that, there's an arch.

DAN LUTZICK:
And, the building itself was so solid that you would be hard pressed to do damage to any part of it. Matter of fact, during the initial demolition, if you ever made the mistake of swinging a sledge hammer into the real building, you would feel that for about the next two weeks in your arms.

DAN LUTZICK:
Along the way, people would wander into the hotel, and finally walk up to me and ask, you know, is this open? Can we check in? I would walk over to another room, grab a clip- board, take their name down and maybe grab a credit card, take them up to a room.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
The whole thing was very odd. But people got a kick out of it. They knew it was not a corporate deal. There was something authentic going on here. This was really a labor of love.

NARRATION
Over the years, the spirit of La Posada has been restored. The ballroom, which had become a soulless conference room, is again a warm, relaxing gathering space. The original lobby had been stripped of all its character. Although no longer the lobby, it again welcomes weary travelers to La Posada. And the original Fred Harvey lunchroom, across whose counters Ruby McHood served many a train traveler, which had become the nerve center for all Santa Fe trains in Arizona, has been transformed into one of the finest gourmet restaurants in Northern Arizona. An ongoing effort to find and return original furnishings, combined with commissioned reproductions and appropriate antiques, have restored La Posada’s interior to Colter's eclectic and warm tone. New works by artisans such as Verne Lucero, one of the southwest’s premiere tinsmiths, infuse the building with the cultural history and personnel passion of this region. And the contemporary works of Dan Lutzick and Tina Mion reveal the vitality of today’s La Posada. For Tina, La Posada is also her studio.

TINA MION:
As a place to show my work it's spectacular because I have people coming from all over the world here. So it works as a wonderful space for my home and gallery.

NARRATION:
The restoration continues. Room by room La Posada’s past and its future is revealed. Piece by piece La Posada has been restored to its place of prominence in the community.

MARIE LAMAR:
Allan Affeldt opened the doors and gave Winslow back a part of La Posada.

ARNOLD BERKE:
Once again it’s a place for Winslow to go to experience, to use, for meetings, events, to go to the restaurant, a place to go and enjoy.

ALLAN AFFELDT:
Over and over and over again, it was the right people at the right time -- maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe it was just hard work. And maybe it was a lot of luck, but I think there was a confluence of all of that. And as Marie Lamar likes to say the spirit of Mary Colter. There is something about this building that enabled it to be saved. A building like this is more than just a business. This is an essential part of northern Arizona, and the history of the southwest. And now, La Posada is a very well known and beloved building. People come here from everywhere. We have Route 66 fans. We have rail fans. There are Mary Colter fans that come here. They go to the Grand Canyon; they discover her work and go on a pilgrimage to see all of her buildings. There are people going up to Hopi and Navajo lands who come here. And, this is maybe what it never was before. This is the destination resort hotel for northeastern Arizona. For it to be in Winslow really is saving the downtown. This is the catalyst for every building in downtown being purchased and restored in the last few years, and that is in fact what's happening.

MARIE LAMAR:
Every Friday night, I get in my car, and I make what I call the loop from the east end of Winslow to the west end and back, because that's what we used to do when Winslow was in its heyday in the '40s and '50s, and now once again, building by building, those lights are returning, and it's very heartwarming to me, and it's heartwarming to the community. The building is a part of Winslow that I wish to see go on a hundred years from now. That’s what La Posada is to Winslow. Its heart and soul.

NARRATOR:
Three Historic Arizona Lodges. Architectural landmarks that share a railroad history… and a tradition of offering travelers comfort, elegance, and a unique window onto Arizona’s high country. “Arizona Lodges: The High Country” is made possible by the KAET program partners, friends of Channel 8 who provide additional gifts to support the Arizona Collection.