The Grand Canyon National Park Service knew y’all were coming, so they baked a cake!
Good morning everyone – I doubt the cake will look like the one up above, I just thought it was cool. But we’re having a partay and you’re all invited! Today, folks at the Grand Canyon are celebrating not one, but two big occasions, no less: the 90th Anniversary of the designation of Grand Canyon as a National Park, and the Grand Opening of the new/old Verkamp’s Visitors Center!
The Grand Canyon became America’s 17th National Park on this day in 1919. But it took awhile for the Grand Canyon to attain National Park status. The area first came under Federal jurisdiction in 1893 as a Game Preserve; later it was “promoted” to National Monument. But this wasn’t enough to protect the immense chasm from people who wanted to exploit it. Miners, loggers, ranchers and other like-minded individuals labored, dreamed and schemed in an effort to make a buck off the Grand Canyon’s natural resources. But at the end of the day, they always seemed to find a rather large obstacle standing in the way of their fortunes: the Grand Canyon itself. Its steep cliffs, often inhospitable climate and extreme remoteness had a maddening tendency to negate any profit to be had from extracting its minerals, harvesting its trees, or letting cows graze in its forests. Fortunately these endeavors were mostly abandoned by the dawn of the 20th century in favor of a far more profitable and less labor-intensive pursuit: tourism.
Peter Berry was one such individual who “saw the light.” Originally seeking his fortune through mining, Berry was responsible for the construction of the Grandview Trail, which led to his Last Chance Copper Mine on Horseshoe Mesa. In 1897, he built the Grandview Hotel. This would be the first true tourist destination at Grand Canyon’s South Rim and would flourish for a time as a welcome retreat for travelers who had endured the back-breaking (and expensive at $20 a head) 12-hour stagecoach ride from Flagstaff. Around the same time, and approximately 6 miles West of the Grandview, other erstwhile prospectors began trying their hand at the tourism business. James W. Thurber built a small lodge and put up some tent cabins on the canyon rim, an endeavor which was called the “Bright Angel Hotel.” These would be the modest beginnings of Grand Canyon Village.
Meanwhile, Ralph Cameron also built a hotel and staked his claim to an old Indian trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, charging a fee to anyone who wished to walk or ride down it to his Indian Gardens Campground 5 miles from the top. Known then as the “Bright Angel Toll Road,” it would later become the “Bright Angel Trail,” the toll having been done away with. Louis Boucher, nicknamed “The Hermit” (a misnomer as he was actually quite a sociable fellow), established a tourist camp and gardens 8 miles West of the Bright Angel Toll Road. Many private parties competed fiercely for the Grand Canyon tourist’s dollar back in the olden days, to the point where an “urban legend” would surface, purporting that a visitor’s coat was once ripped in half by two hoteliers hawking their respective properties!
In 1901, all that began to change when the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad completed a spur line from Williams, Arizona to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. This made the journey to the Grand Canyon a comfortable and, dare we say, civilized experience of a mere three hours in length. The advent of more feasible means of getting to the park signaled the need for services such as hotels and restaurants at the track’s end at the burgeoning Grand Canyon Village. Construction soon began on the 
first large-scale Grand Canyon hotel, with financing from the Santa Fe: the El Tovar.
Designed by Charles Whittlesey, the El Tovar evokes a feeling of opulence with earthy undertones, with architectural details culled from Swiss ski chalets and Norwegian hunting villas such as dark-varnished log beams, oversized fireplaces and vaulted ceilings. British-born hotelier Fred Harvey was contracted to run the hotel, bringing his unique business sense, city-bred efficiency, and his famous Harvey Girls to Grand Canyon National Park. Sadly, Harvey never saw his ambitions for the El Tovar come to fruition as he died prior to its completion in 1905.
The smaller hotels could not compete with the El Tovar and the railroad money that backed it. Peter Berry’s Grandview Hotel managed to hang on until 1908, but it too would eventually be dismantled. Today, one can still see a few remnants of the Grandview Hotel, such as old pipes and a cistern, by walking down an unmarked road half a mile East of Grandview Point. But as one Grand Canyon entrepreneur’s dream died, the dream of another came true: John Verkamp had arrived on the scene in 1898, selling souvenirs to Grand Canyon visitors out of a tent. Unable to make a go of it, he sold off his remaining stock, packed up and returned to nearby Flagstaff the very same year. Turns out he had the right idea, just at the wrong time. A mere two years later, railway service had made it to the rim of the Grand Canyon and business was not just good, it was “grand.”
Verkamp returned to Grand Canyon South Rim in 1905 and, with building materials shipped in from Los 
Angeles, built the store that still stands today. In the ensuing decades, the store remained in the Verkamp family, operating as a concessionaire for the Grand Canyon National Park Service. They established a reputation on offering quality crafts, obtained through long-standing relationships with Native artisans. While every other gift shop in the park was part of the larger lodging and food service concessionaire, Verkamp’s was the last remaining concession within the park that was family owned and operated. In November of 2008, the Verkamps’ concession contract came up for renewal. After over 100 years of dedicated service, the family elected not to renew their contract, and sold the building to the National Park Service, who converted it into what will heretofore be remembered as the Verkamp’s Visitors’ Center.
As it captivated the imagination of the country – including no less than President Theodore Roosevelt – greater federal protection was sought for “the place where the heart of the earth had been laid bare.” In 1919, Grand Canyon National Park officially came to be. In 1975, federal legislation would extend the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park to the Grand Wash Cliffs to the West and Lees Ferry to the east, effectively doubling the size of the park. By then, four other lodges had been built inside Grand Canyon National Park at the South Rim, and the community of Tusayan would established itself as a Grand Canyon gateway community with five hotels of its own.
Today, the Grand Canyon is “the sum of its parks.” Grand Canyon National Park plays host to 5 million visitors annually, but it also competes for – and sometimes shares – its slice of the “tourism pie” with other areas of the Grand Canyon owned by Native American Tribal interests: Grand Canyon West, owned by the Hualapai Indian Tribe; Havasu Canyon, owned by the Supai Indian Tribe (presently closed due to flooding); and the extreme Eastern end of the Grand Canyon owned by the Navajo Indian Tribe. Whichever side, or sides, one chooses to visit it from, the Grand Canyon is a place that inexplicably draws people to it, gets in their blood, and leaves them with a yearning to return, usually bringing their children with them.
Those of you who are at the Grand Canyon today should join in the celebration at 1.30 PM at the Verkamp’s Visitors’ Center. The National Park Service will be on hand to answer your questions – and eat cake with you! Have some for me – I’m busy answering your questions. Have you asked yours yet?
Later, GrandCanyon.com
Listen to a podcast of an interview with Grand Canyon Park superintendent Steve Martin here –>: http://www.nps.gov/grca/photosmultimedia/upload/20090220MartinPod.mp3
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