Bright Angel Lodge - Grand Canyon Village Historic District - Arizona
N 36° 03.411 W 112° 08.466
12S E 397227 N 3990856
The Bright Angel Lodge (1935) incorporates the Buckey O'Neill Cabin and the Red Horse Station, relocated to the site. Formerly the Bright Angel Hotel, the facility was almost entirely rebuilt under the direction of architect Mary Colter.
Waymark Code: WMT8XN
Location: Arizona, United States
Date Posted: 10/16/2016
Views: 5
Bright Angel Lodge is a hotel complex at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. 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 structure in the Grand Canyon Village National Historic Landmark District.
The first accommodation at the location was established by James Thurber in 1896 at the head of the Bright Angel Trail leading into the canyon. Thurber ran a stagecoach 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 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. 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 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.[1] 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.
By the 1930s the Bright Angel operation needed renovation. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, 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 and Lookout Studio 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.
Name of Historic District (as listed on the NRHP): Grand Canyon Village Historic District
Link to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com page with the Historic District: [Web Link]
NRHP Historic District Waymark (Optional): [Web Link]
Address:
Grand Canyon National Park, 9 Village Loop Drive, Grand Canyon Village, AZ 86023, United States
How did you determine the building to be a contributing structure?: Narrative found on the internet (Link provided below)
Optional link to narrative or database: [Web Link]
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