El Tovar Hotel
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El Tovar Hotel
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El Tovar Hotel in early 1900s.jpg
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| Location | Grand Canyon National Park, Rte. 8A, Grand Canyon, Arizona |
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| Coordinates | 36°3′27″N 112°8′13″W / 36.05750°N 112.13694°WCoordinates: 36°3′27″N 112°8′13″W / 36.05750°N 112.13694°W |
| Area | 4.1 acres (1.7 ha) |
| Built | 1903 |
| Architectural style | Other, Swiss Chalet;Norway Villa |
| NRHP Reference # | 74000334 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | September 6, 1974 |
| Designated NHL | May 28, 1987 |
The El Tovar Hotel, also known simply as El Tovar, is a former Harvey House hotel situated directly on the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States. The hotel was designed by Charles Whittlesey, Chief Architect for the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway and was opened in 1905 as one of a chain of hotels and restaurants owned and operated by the Fred Harvey Company in conjunction with the Santa Fe railway whose Grand Canyon Depot was 100 metres (330 ft) away. It is at the northern terminus of the Grand Canyon Railway, which was formerly a branch of the Santa Fe. The hotel is one of only a handful of Harvey House facilities that are still in operation, and is an early example of the style that would evolve into National Park Service Rustic architecture. The Hotel is also featured in the 1983 film, National Lampoon's Vacation.
The hotel, which opened in 1905 before the Grand Canyon was a formally protected Federal park, following on the heels of President Theodore Roosevelt's 1903 visit to the canyon. During his visit Roosevelt said about the Grand Canyon:
I want to ask you to do one thing in connection with it in your own interest and in the interest of the country – to keep this great wonder of nature as it is now ...I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loveliness and beauty of the Canyon. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve upon it.
The hotel, which had been under design since at least 1902, was built the next year and opened in January 1905. The Grand Canyon Game Preserve was established by Roosevelt's executive order in 1906, expanding protections granted by President Benjamin Harrison in 1893. The Grand Canyon National Monument was proclaimed in 1908, and Grand Canyon National Park was finally established by Congress in 1916.
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