Great Lodges of the National Park

[Music, Animal Sounds] [Narrator] The American West was once wilderness. A place of raw beauty where mighty beasts roam free and the soul of man was humbled. There is still such a place. More than two million acres of deeply gorged, fire scarred and geysers studded rocky mountain landscape, Yellowstone National Park. The Yellowstone of 150 years ago offered no such comforts as Old Faithful Inn. The mountain men and trappers who roamed this rugged and isolated land filled Montana's bar rooms with

stories of a place where the earth spewed steam and ????. Few believed them. By 1872, three geological expeditions had confirmed the fantastic tales. And on March 1st of that year, Yellowstone National Park was created. [Guest Speaker] The Northern Pacific Railroad jumped on that bandwagon, and they were thinking from the very get go that this was a great place where we can put people on a train in Minneapolis or Chicago and cart them out to Yellowstone and make money off them. [Guest Speaker] Railroad didn't get here till 1883. And of course, that arrival of the railroad is really what kicked Yellowstone into gear. All of a sudden we had 5000 visitors that summer instead of the 500 to 1000 we'd had before then. [Narrator] By the turn of the century there were a number of hotels in Yellowstone. But the spartan accommodations at the Upper Geyser Basin kept many away. [Music] In a scenario repeated in other national parks, powerful railroad interests

helped to open the parks to tourism by creating first class accommodations. [Guest speaker] The railroads were bankrolling the national parks for the whole first half of the 20th century. Now please don't get me wrong. They weren't doing anything with resource protection, building the roads or things like that. But for tourist travel to the Great Western National Park, to Glacier National Park to Yosemite to Yellowstone, they were the ones who were providing the funds to build the Grand Hotels. At the turn of the century, Harry Child, the President of the Yellowstone Park Hotel Company of the time, managed to convince the Northern Pacific to fund, for him, building a very good hotel here at the Upper Geyser Basin. And he hired a young architect at 29 years of age, Robert Chambers Reamer, to come and do it for him. [Narrator] Robert Reamer was a versatile architect who appreciated the relationship between a building and its setting. This sensitivity would create a lasting identity for lodges in Yellowstone and all the national parks.

The original Queen Anne plans were scrapped. After visiting the Upper Geyser Basin, Reamer was inspired. He turned to nature and designed an asymmetrical rustic lodge to reflect its setting. [Guest Speaker] He understood the nature that surrounds the building. The trees, the mountains, the rocks. I mean take just about any tree. A tree is not symmetrical. It's asymmetrical. But it has balance of form. Reamer wanted to do the same thing in building. [Narrator] Construction of the inn began in June of 1903 and continued through a very long and cold Yellowstone winter. It was so cold nails shattered, but the work continued. Little is known about the 50 men who built the Old Faithful Inn. Even most of their names are lost to history. They dragged hundreds of native lodgepole pines and tons of rhyolite rock to the shadow

of Old Faithful geyser. Robert Reamer's giant structure steadily rose from the steamy earth. But things didn't always go as planned. [Guest Speaker] I'm sure that at some point, the master carpenter came over holding the drawings, just angry as can be: Mr. Reamer: You see this here thing on the drawing and you see that up there on the building. I can't build it. And Reamer looked at his drawings. He looked up at his buildings and he said, oops. And so Reamer would make changes. As time went on he massaged it, he improved it. He, he made parts the buildings that didn't exist in his original concept. [Narrator] The Old Faithful Inn opened in June 1904. The first great lodge in the world's first national park. The original section, known as the old house, had 140 rooms. [Guest speaker] Initially, the middle class couldn't afford to come to a place like Yellowstone. The

train ride was expensive, and when you got here it was $50 for a five day tour around the park, which included your meals and your accommodations, but that was a lot of money in those days, and it was basically well-to-do folks who could afford that. So the hotel had to be built to their expectations. It had a rustic look to it. No doubt about that. And everyone commented on that in very very positive terms. But the Old Faithful Inn was built as a luxury hotel. [Guest Speaker] This building had electricity from day one. It had flush toilets from day one. It had lights and telephones from day one. [Guest Speaker] Hot and [Guest Speaker] Cold running water. Steam heat. It was a luxury joint. [Narrator] Over the years, two wings were added. Also designed by Robert Reamer. Today, Old Faithful Inn offers 326 rooms in the heart of Yellowstone Park. The Inn is owned by the American people and overseen by the National Park Service. It is

operated by a private concession company. [Guest Speaker] This is very much what our rooms look like today in the Old Faithful Inn. This is exactly how we rent them today. [Quinn] Today, we're renting 89 rooms.... [Narrator] Curiosity about the past is so great that interpreters, such as Ruth Quinn, conduct tours four times a day. [Quinn] This piece of furniture is an original piece of furniture in this room. It's the wash stand with the copper top here that would have had a pitcher, and a basin on top of it so they could bring water from down the hall to wash in their rooms. A chamber pot underneath so they could not have to walk down the hall in the middle of the night themselves. [Music] The rooms in the original part of the building are still very much the same way they were constructed. We've left a lot of the character the same. We do now have sinks in the rooms but visitors in the original part of the building still walk down the hall for the toilets and showers, just like they did when the building opened. We do have more modern rooms in additions to the building, but here in the original part in the old house we try to keep that character the same as it would have been when visitors stayed originally.

There are certain people who only stay in the old part of the building. It gives them a feeling of being connected to those visitors who came here many many years ago. They are essentially our history, our past. You can get a feeling of that past by staying in this building. [Guest Speaker] Over the years, I don't know, I've replaced several hundred of these I suppose around the Inn. Like little kids get foolin' with them and get one out and stick in their pocket and half way back to Iowa say: "Hey Dad, Look what I got." You know. I never got the idea it was theft as much as just, you know, interest in the material. [Narrator] Blacksmith George Ainslie is one of the many craftsmen who preserves the Inn's legacy. [Ainslie] The goal at the end here is to make the work look like it looked originally. So my job is to try to match the texture and the color and the scale that the original architect had in

mind. You know the Inn is not a dead building, it's a live building. We're still working on it, we're still using it. It's a constant job to keep a building like this up and runnin', because it is in use all the time. It's not a museum. It's still being used. This is the front entrance to the Inn, [sound of door opening] and if you sat here very long when it's cold out, you'll see this door open. It's like it's never still almost, it's open close, open close. When I came on the project this door had worn down to where it was dragging on the floor. It was taking several guys to drag it open in the morning and drag it shut at night. We came in and ground out those hinges flat and put in an inch and a half of bushing. And now with that bushing in there it works like it used to. See it mass and size of the weight of this hardware. The idea was to try to match the scale of the West, and the park around ya without mimicking it. You know, they wanted to build stuff that was big and heavy. So this was the first thing when people came, they first

experience after seeing the whole building was seeing this door and getting a feel of this hardware and handling it. [Narrator] Atop the lobby's massive fireplace clings the Inn's most famous piece of iron, The giant clock. [Ainslie] It was built below me here about 60 feet I guess, by George Colpitts, who was a blacksmith on the project and designed designed by Robert Reamer. It's centuries old technology brought into a modern setting that still operating and it's still beautiful. It's still one of the key points of the Inn. It's, it's an honor to get out here and just take a look at how the old guy made the letters and the numbers, and how it was all put together. Any time I could work on this building it's an honor. [Narrator] The Inn's timber frame has endured a relentless assault of heat,

cold, rain, and snow. By the late 1970's, the strain on the giant wooden structure had taken its toll. [Guest speaker] There were some people that thought the Old Faithful Inn was in such bad shape we should tear it down. There were, were joints coming apart. The, the roof was collapsing in sections. Logs were falling off the building. It needed a lot of work. [Narrator] In 1979, a 10-year restoration and rehabilitation of the Old Faithful Inn began. Restoration of a log structure this size had never been attempted. It would need the right man to oversee it. That man was Andy Beck. Much like Reamers effort in building the Inn, Beck and his crew worked night and day and through harsh winters restoring it. The two architects were from different eras, but they shared a common bond,

Old Faithful Inn. Just when the Old Faithful Inn had been restored to its original glory, it was nearly destroyed. [Fire sounds, water sounds] [Narrator] Fire is a constant threat to a wooden lodge like the Inn, but the inferno that engulfed Yellowstone country in 1988, was like nothing in recent memory. As the flames surrounded the Inn, a new water system soaked the roof. Volunteers stamped out sparks. Then suddenly, the wind shifted. A million acres had burned, but Old Faithful Inn stood uncharred. The fires of 1988 reminded everyone that nature is in

charge in Yellowstone. The American West was once wilderness. A place of raw beauty where mighty beasts roam free and the soul of man was humbled. There is still such a place. More than two million acres of deeply gorged, fire scarred, and geysers studded Rocky Mountain landscape. Yellowstone National Park.

[Fiddle music] [Guest speaker] Mr. Reamer was careful in the way that he oriented the Inn. He didn't orient it to face Old Faithful Geyser. He oriented it so that when your stage coach rolled up in front, Old Faithful Geyser was what you were seeing directly ahead of you. The Inn stands here next to the geysers without upstaging them, which probably couldn't be done anyway. The moment the geyser has erupted, the geyser rush takes over and all the buildings around Old Faithful including the Inn, are just flooded with people within three minutes of the end of the geyser. eruption. As they enter the front door, there's a ceiling over them for the first few feet inside, and then it opens up into the lobby, which stands 76 feet 6 inches from the bottom of the soles of your shoes to as high as you can see, and people are literally awestruck. They stand there with their jaws hanging open for a minute or two on end, sometimes not even speaking. And when they finally find words to speak

it's the types of comments of: Can you believe this. What a great Building. [Guest Speaker] The Inn is the social hub of Yellowstone. Those who come here to the Upper Geyser Basin come to see the geysers and hot springs which rightfully overshadow the Inn. They're the real scenic value here, but those who step into the lobby of Old Faithful Inn find one of Yellowstone's greatest surprises in this structure. [Guest Speaker] Today this building is very much a place for the public to come and enjoy. It is not just restricted to the guests as it would have been when it opened in 1904. Visitors of all ages, shapes, sizes, nationalities, come inside the Inn. Any of us are free to sit in a chair, sit back, enjoy an ice cream, just listen to the sights and the sounds of the building. [Guest Speaker] When Robert Reamer designed the main lobby, he had on a long span

of open space that he wanted to open up for 76 and a half feet into the air, and his concept of rustic architecture meant that he had to do something. He couldn't get a single log to span the space. He had to do something to get enough structure up there to hold it. [Guest Speaker] When I first started working on the building, I was looking at the truss, the structure that holds up the roof. The triangular portion there, and I resolved the truss in my head and realized it couldn't work. Wood just can't fit together like that. And then I noticed there was a straight crack running down the center of the piece of wood. The crack that's in this column is not unlike the crack that's in the truss. It's absolutely dead straight. It had to have been cut with a saw. What Reamer did was, he cut the log in half, hollowed it out and then, filled it with [sound of ringing steel] steel. And that's what's up there holding it together. [Guest Speaker] Robert Reamer taught me a lot. Perhaps he was my

mentor in some ways. I definitely do things differently now as a result of what I learned from Robert Reamer. [Narrator] Located in the Rockies center of Utah's canyon country, in the southern end of the Colorado Plateau, Zion National Park offers a glimpse at a unique and seldom seen view of a canyon. The bottom. [Guest Speaker] Grand Canyon is very grand. And Zion is almost the opposite of that. Rather than being at the top and looking down, you're in the bottom of it and things are real cozy around you. They're just totally different, and I think the word intimate is the one I would use for this place. [Narrator] Built in 1924, Zion Lodge is a simple rustic building forming the centerpiece of a community of cabins. This arrangement of day lodge

and overnight cabins affords some more bucolic approach to staying in a National Park, a far cry from the elegant El Tovar. [Guest Speaker] What the Lodge does here is that it allows people to come in to the park and spend an evening here and get to experience the canyon in a way that the person who simply drives to the park doesn't get that same experience. [Guest Speaker] Where can you sit in a dining room and see what's here. [Guest Speaker]You're right in the park. That's the beauty of the lodge here. You're right in the park. Here we sit on the patio and you can see the park. You can live in the park and it's a great experience to spend an overnight at the park. [Narrator] Zion Canyon was set aside as a National Monument in 1909 and incorporated into the National Park Service in 1919. The newly formed federal service was under the guidance of Stephen Mather, its first director.

[Guest Speaker] Mather did believe that for people to support the national park idea and these magnificent places, they had to be accessible to people. Well 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. [Guest Speaker] 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. This was in close proximity to Bryce and Zion National Parks. And also not very far from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. [Guest Speaker] Stephen Mather and the Union Pacific Railroad were just the right people, at the right time, at the right place, to develop

these National Parks and to begin to get people to really appreciate the beauty and the ideal of National Parks. [Narrator] The Grand Canyon's more remote North Rim and nearby Bryce Canyon were also being developed into National Parks. 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 all three parks and link them with motor coaches running from a train stop at Cedar City, Utah, about 60 miles from Zion. 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. [Guest Speaker] They had 40 of these ???? passenger buses that ran to the various parks. The first night they would stay in Zion, or maybe two nights.

Then drive from here to Grand Canyon and there it was always a two night deal. Then from there to Bryce Canyon for one night stay. Then from Bryce back to Cedar City. [Narrator] By 1928, each of the three parks had a lodge. Mather felt that these destinations 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. [Water sounds] A massive canyon carved by a river, Zion offers some one-of-a-kind hiking experiences. [Guest Speaker] The Virgin River has been cutting down through the Navajo sandstone, and it has finally reached the shale layer And that eroded away more easily. From that spot downstream the canyon is widening.

If you walk up to that spot and continue on you'll find that the canyon is very narrow and remains narrow, and very vertical. So it's it's a change in what erosion has left behind for us to see. [Guest Speaker] One of the things that is unique about Zion is that it reminds us that we are very small in a much bigger world. A natural environment that's very encompassing. These walls are very comforting to a lot of people, and the color of them, and the sound of the wind and the sound of the river moving through the canyon. And we very much become part of the natural environment here, and it's easy to become part of it. [Guest Speaker] I just think it's one of the most spectacular parks. I know it's often been called the Yosemite done in colors. [Guest Speaker] It's just incredibly beautiful and every day that I come up here, I see something different. [Guest Speaker] I think it depends on what they are looking for what people will find in Zion. If they're looking for someone to entertain them, they might as well not come. But if they're looking for

peace, if they're looking for beauty, they will find it. [Narrator] Due to problems with traffic congestion, cars are not allowed into most of Zion Canyon. In a bit of a throwback to the original loop tours, a new shuttle system now takes people through the park. [Guest Speaker] We're going back to the old way of doing buses and we're finding that people are enjoying it. It used to be the small number of parking spaces in this narrow canyon that was the limiting factor for access. Now you can come up here at any time of day and hike a trail. It's quiet. [Guest Speaker] You've got a lot of micro habitats, or niches. Perfect spots for 900 types of

plants. [Guest Speaker] On a shuttle tour, 28 people can join a park ranger going up canyon and have features of the park explained to them. The geology, the biology, all of the plants, the animals that you'll see. It turns out to be very popular with many folks. [Narrator] Perhaps Zion National Park is at its best in the evenings. The sun setting over the colorful formations of the canyon creates a warm glow and the lawn in front of the lodge becomes a scene of serenity and relaxation. [Guest Speaker] Busy all day. Workin' out in the sun. Let's just kind of relax and take it easy. They sit on their verandas, their porches. Just relax. Some times of the year you might see two or three deer coming, eating, feeding on the lawn. Some of us never did learn to relax. But you sure can do it here. [Guest Speaker] I believe National Parks are one of the things that provide the country with good

mental health. Places you can go to escape everyday life. Places where you can go to enjoy nature. Places where you can go and just totally relax and see what the world used to be like. [Guest Speaker] Being on the bottom of the canyon floor and looking up at these incredible canyon walls and to see the light change in the Canyon, to have the wildlife in close proximity, to me that's what makes this Lodge unique. [Guest Speaker] Some parks don't have a great deal to offer like we have here in Zion. You can see so much at Zion. Lots to see. That is Zion. That Lodge is just part of Zion. It comes with the canyon. [Narrator] Zion lodge was the first stop on the old Loop Tours. After a couple of days there, people would crowd onto the old buses and move on to the next park. Today many people follow the old Loop Tour route. Visiting the parks and lodges in the same order.

The next stop on the loop tour was the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the Grand Canyon Lodge. It was the middle stop of the tour, located in a remote area of northern Arizona. It was once a drive of many hours until the completion of the mile long Mount Carmel tunnel, which cuts through some of the hazardous mountain passages. The drive between the two lodges is a paradox of geological and natural experience. The eroded landscapes of southern Utah, give way to large stands of tall Ponderosa pines, and it becomes hard to believe that one is headed for one of the world's largest canyons. Like the other Loop Tour locations, the design of Grand Canyon Lodge was the inspiration of Gilbert Stanley Underwood. His great genius at the North Rim is that he manages to conceal one of the biggest holes in the world. [Guest Speaker] 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, like emanating out of a lower room, and saw huge windows there. They went down the stairs and then they went out into this, what we call the sunroom. All of a sudden, boom, there it was. [Visitor] What do you think? [Child] Wow. [Visitor] Look at that view. It'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.

[Guest Speaker] The original lodge was like a Spanish fort. It had a very high tower. The thing is 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 if you can take your eyes off the Canyon for awhile, and then gaze at it again, you start seeing detail. But if you take it all at once, it's overwhelming. [Guest Speaker] 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. [Guest Speaker] When we first got to the lodge. I think it was an overwhelming experience. I mean it's

just looking into the lodge and seeing the architecture and and the beamed ceilings and 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. [Guest Speaker] North Rim hiking, it's extreme. We do 400 search and rescues a year. And when you look into that canyon here you realize that it's unforgiving and you can get lost. You can get dehydrated. You can get heat exposure, there's a million ways that the Canyon can really punish you. [chuckles] [Narrator] After the Grand Canyon, the tour buses would once again enter southern Utah to

take passengers to the last stop on the Loop Tour, Bryce Canyon Lodge. [Music] A 56 square mile splash of color, Bryce Canyon's unusual formations stand in stark contrast to this arid western region. After the massive spectacle of the Grand Canyon, this intimate little park was the perfect finale for the Loop Tour experience. [Guest speaker] You can liken it to a full course meal. You go into Zion Canyon, which is the first stop and then there you had your salad, or the starter, and that started the meal. The North Rim was the main course, was the entree. And then you came to Bryce Canyon and there's where you had the dessert. [Narrator] The geologies of these parks are as interconnected as the histories they share

as Loop Tour locations. All three are part of a geologic formation called the Grand Staircase. Gigantic steps have eroded cliffs whose varied bands of color highlight different formations as they descend toward the Grand Canyon. [Guest Speaker] Bryce Canyon with its pink cliffs rock formation, this represents the upper most step in this sequence of geologic layers. Below the Pink Cliffs is another step known as the Grey Cliffs. Below the Grey Cliffs are the White Cliffs, and those are found in Zion National Park. You work your way down to the Vermilion Cliffs and then the Chocolate Cliffs which are down close to the Grand Canyon. So these three parks are kind of tied together by forming a complete geologic sequence represented by their different layers as gigantic steps. [Guest Speaker] Bryce Canyon is something like a cave without a roof on it. That's what a lot of people will say. Stalactites, they call the ones that hang from the ceilings, stalagmites, the ones that grow up towards the

ceiling. Well Bryce Canyon looks like a bunch of stalagmites inside of a cave. These narrow skinny structures of rock protruding up from the ground. [Narrator] Sited about a quarter mile back from the unstable rim of Bryce Canyon, the lodge reflects a Northern European rustic design. The only Loop Tour lodge not destroyed by fire and rebuilt, at Bryce the original Gilbert Stanley Underwood vision can still be seen. [Guest Speaker] I think it's just so special and we hear this so much from our visitors. They say: Grand Canyon is so massive and so grand, and Zion is beautiful, but there's

something about Bryce that they just love, because it's a relatively small park and they call it intimate. It's very easy to get down on the trails. You can hike in only a mile or two and you can be right among these delicately carved formations, and people feel like it's easy to become a part of this park. Wall Street is a deep narrow slot canyon that is part of the Navajo Loop trail, and it's a very popular stretch of trail. And what Wall Street is, is one of those deep vertical cracks which geologists called joints that are throughout this Claron formation. Those cracks are the pathways for water to get down in and erode away some of the rock and then widen the crack. [Narrator] The most dominant feature of Bryce are rock formations called hoodoos. Looking like the remnants of ancient castles, these tall spires of stone are

unique to this area. [Guest Speaker] A hoodoo, that's the name that we give all of these intricately carved unusual rock formations that Bryce Canyon is so famous for. The word hoodoo actually has two definitions. One is a pillar or odd shaped rock, and the other definition, which is a little more intriguing, would be of African origin and it means to cast a spell or cause bad luck. [Bird sounds] [Visitor] It's really starting to light up over there, huh [Guest Speaker] We have a extraordinary sunrise here at Bryce Canyon. One of the biggest questions we get is where's the best place to go for sunrise. I think most everybody agrees Bryce Point is the best place. It's on a peninsula of rock that sticks out into the main amphitheater, and it almost is like being the focal point of a parabola, where the rising sun strikes into the amphitheater and reflects back to this point. And it's a very intense visual experience. It's 45 minutes that people will stand completely silent.

A hundred people could be watching the sunrise. It's a very spiritual experience. [Narrator] The employees would also sing to guests as they left the lodges Called a sing away these these parting musical numbers would be a Loop Tour tradition for nearly 60 years, lasting until the Utah Parks Company turned the lodges over to the park service in 1972. [Guest Speaker] The bus would pull up in front, and they just come and get everybody out of all the departments and just have 'em all go out on the porch and line up and then we'd start singing. It's a special song just for Bryce, it has stolen little bits from other songs. [Singing] [Narrator] Every few years, some of the old employees get together at Bryce and share memories of working at the park. Sometimes they even perform sing aways, just like they did in the past. On some of these nostalgic occasions, the Park Service brings out an authentic old Loop Tour bus.

[Guest Speaker] These people are former employees. They come back to find the magic again. [Singers] Sing away, sing away, sing away. [Guest Speaker] We're in the memory business and that's what the National Park Service has ???? This Lodge, built in the '20s is full of memories. [Singers] Farewell to thee. [Guest Speaker] They create a rich tradition for us. They give us a place of being. They give us a real purpose. And we came back to visit, because we felt there was a magical part of our lives in the early years when we were young. And we came back to see the magic again. And it's all here. [Singers] Take one last look. The memory will remain 'til you come back to Bryce again. [Guest Speaker] We really are the repositories of the natural and cultural resources of this nation.

We are the greatest libraries that the nation has of what it means to be American. Whether we're talking about the natural resources you can see looking off the Rim, or talking about the cultural resources, the history is truly the fiber of America. [The following is repeated audio, unedited] [Narrator] Located in the Rockies center of Utah's Canyon Country, in the southern end of the Colorado Plateau, Zion National Park offers a glimpse at a unique and seldom seen view of a canyon, the bottom. [Guest Speaker] Grand Canyon is very grand. And Zion is almost the opposite of that. Rather than being at the top and looking down, you're in the bottom of it and things are real cozy around you. They're just totally different and I think the word intimate is the one I would use for this place. Built in 1924, Zion Lodge is a simple rustic building

forming the centerpiece of a community of cabins. This arrangement of day lodge and overnight cabins affords a more bucolic approach to staying in a National Park. A far cry from the elegant El Tovar. [Guest Speaker] What the Lodge does here is that it allows people to come into the park and spend an evening here and get to experience the Canyon in a way that the person who simply drives through the park doesn't get that same experience. [Guest Speaker] Where can you sit in a dining room and actually see what's what's here. [Guest Speaker]You're right in the park, that's the beauty of the lodge, you're right in the park. You can sit on the patio and you can see the park, you can live the park, and it's a great experience to spend an overnight at the park. [Narrator] Zion Canyon was set aside as a National Monument in 1909 and incorporated into the National Park Service in 1919. The newly formed

federal service was under the guidance of Stephen Mather, its first director. [Guest Speaker] Mather did believe that for people to support the National Park idea and these magnificent places, they had to be accessible to people. Well 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. [Guest Speaker] This was the nature of the railroad 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. They're also not very far from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. [Guest Speaker] Stephen Mather and the Union Pacific Railroad were just the right people,

at the right time, at the right place, to develop these National Parks and to begin to get people to really appreciate the beauty and the ideal of National Parks. [Narrator] The Grand Canyons more remote North Rim and nearby Bryce Canyon were also being developed into National Parks. 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 all three parks and link them with motor coaches running from a train stop at Cedar City Utah about 60 miles from Zion. 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. They had 40 of these ten passenger buses. They ran to the various parks. The first night they would stay in Zion. Or maybe two

nights. Then drive from here to Grand Canyon and there was always a two night deal then from there to Bryce Canyon for a one night stay. Then from Bryce back to Cedar City. By 1928 each of the three parks had a lodge. Mather felt that these destinations 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. People never forget their experience of Grand Canyon Lodge. It's just a great place to be. After the Grand Canyon. The tour buses would once again enter southern Utah to take passengers to the last stop on the Loop Tour. Bryce Canyon lodge.

[music] A fifty six square mile splash of color Bryce Canyon's unusual formations stand in stark contrast to this arid western region. After the massive spectacle of the Grand Canyon, this intimate little park was the perfect finale for the Loop Tour experience. You can liken it to a full course meal: you go into Zion Canyon which is the first stop and there you had your salad or the starter and that started the meal. The North Rim was the main course, was the was the entrée. And then you came to Bryce Canyon and there's where you had the dessert. The geology is of these parks are as interconnected as the histories they share as Loop Tour locations. All three are part of a geologic formation

called the Grand Staircase. Gigantic steps of eroded cliffs whose varied bands of color highlight different formations as they descend toward the Grand Canyon. Bryce Canyon with its Pink Cliffs rock formation, this represents the uppermost step in this sequence of geologic layers below the pink cliffs is another step known as the grey cliffs below the gray cliffs are the white cliffs and those are found in Zion National Park. You work your way down to the Vermilion Cliffs and then the chocolate cliffs which are down close to the Grand Canyon. So these three parks are kind of tied together by forming a complete geologic sequence represented by their different layers as gigantic steps. Bryce Canyon is something like a cave without a roof on it. That's what a lot of people will say stalagtites, they call the ones that hang from the ceilings stalamite's the ones that grow up towards the ceiling. Well, Bryce Canyon looks like a bunch of stalagmites inside of a

cave. These narrow skinny structures of rock protruding up from the ground. Sighted about a quarter mile back from the unstable rim of Bryce Canyon, the lodge reflects a Northern European rustic design. The only loop to a lodge not destroyed by fire and rebuilt at Bryce the original Gilbert Stanley Underwood vision can still be seen. Bryce I think it's just so special and we hear so much from our visitors they say Grand Canyon is so massive and so grand and Zion is beautiful but there's something about Bryce that they just love because it's a relatively small park and they call it intimate. It's very

easy to get down on the trails. You can hike only a mile or two and you can be right among these delicately carved formations and people feel like it's easy to become a part of this park. Wall Street is a deep narrow slot canyon that is part of the Navajo Loop Trail and it's a very popular stretch of trail. And what Wall Street is is one of those deep vertical cracks which geologists called joints that are throughout this claron formation. Those cracks are the pathways for water to get down in and erode away some of the rock and then widen the crack. The most dominant feature at Bryce are rock formations called hoodoos. Looking like the remnants of ancient castles these tall spires of stone are unique to this area. A hoodoo that's the name that we give all of these intricately carved

unusual rock formations that Bryce Canyon is so famous for. The word hoodoo actually has two definitions one is a pillar or odd shaped rock and the other definition which is a little more intriguing. Would be of African origin. And it means to cast a spell or cause bad luck. And. Later. We have an extraordinary sunrise this year at Bryce canyon. One of the biggest questions we get is where's the best place to go for sunrise, but I think most everybody agrees Bryce Point is the best place. It's on a peninsula of rock that sticks out into the main amphitheater and it almost is like that being the focal point of a parabola where the rising sun strikes into the amphitheater reflects back to this point. And it's a very intense visual experience. It's 45 minutes that people will stand completely silent. A hundred people be watching the sunrise. It's a very spiritual experience. The employees would also sing to guests as they left the lodges

called a Sing away. These parting musical numbers would be a loop tour tradition. For nearly 60 years lasting until the Utah parks company turned the lodges over to the park service in 1972. The bus would pull up in front. And they just come and get everybody out of all the departments and just have all go out on the porch and line up and then we'd start singing it's a special song just for Bryce that has stolen little bits from other songs. Every few years Some of the old employees get together with Bryce and share memories of working at the park. Sometimes they even perform sing aways just like they did in the past on some of these nostalgic occasions, the park service brings out an authentic old Loop tour bus. These people are former employees. They come back to find the magic. We're in the memory business and that's what the National Park

Service has had. This lodge built in the 20s and is full of memories. They create a great tradition for us to give us a place of being they give us a real purpose. And we came back to visit because we felt there was a magical part of our lives in the early years we were young. And we came back to see the magic again. And it's all here. We really are the repositories of the natural and cultural resources of this nation. One of the greatest libraries that the nation has of what it means to be American rather than you know natural resources you can see looking off the rim, or to talk about the cultural resources the history of is

truly the fiber of American. [End of repeated audio, unedited] [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 site 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. [Guest Speaker] The canyon is such a vast place. I mean, when you're coming from virtually anywhere you don't have any perspective distance. You know because you've never seen anything this big. They look at these buildings and they provide for 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, [Train whistle] [Guest Speaker] Railroads were very instrumental in developing the West. In many ways populated the West, and was very instrumental in getting National Parks established that we have in the West. Particularly Grand Canyon National Park.

[Narrator] Soaring high over these manmade landmarks along the rim, California condors are reminders of the canyons rich, natural history. Though nearly extinct before a reintroduction program started a few years ago, condors now fly over the Canyon almost daily. A fitting adjunct to this wild environment. [Guest Speaker] They love the canyon habitat. I think there's about 21 now that are in the wild, just circling the area. They're very curious animals and they're very social animals. So they just like to go hang out and just kind of check out all the people in the room. So you'll see them on any given day. [Narrator] The condors reflect the wild and untamed spirit of the Canyon. Their graceful flight a contrast to the stoic solidarity of the rocky walls. The buildings of two distinctly different architects provide a similar

contrast along the rim. The native inspired designs of Mary Coulter 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. [Guest Speaker] 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. You've got everything connecting itself, in a very much a landscape design change. Grand Canyon is probably the best remaining example of any of them. The 1924 village plan is pretty much still there. [Guest Speaker] 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 that they walk away feeling something that they didn't bargain for, they're recharged. They are 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. [Visitor speaking] Look at that view. It's a long way down isn't it. [The following is repeated audio, unedited] [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. 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 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. 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. We first got to the lodge. I think it was an overwhelming experience. I mean just looking into the lodge and seeing the architecture and the beam ceilings and the chandeliers and then coming into the sitting room and seeing the windows and the vista it just kind of takes your breath away. 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. North Rim hiking; it's extreme. They do 400 search and rescues a year. And when you look into that canyon here you realize that it's unforgiving and you can get lost. You can get dehydrated you can get heat exposure. There's a million ways that the canyon can really punish you. [End of repeated audio, unedited] [The following is repeated audio, unedited] The Grand Canyon embodies the wild open spirit of the American West. It's vast nuisance scale challenge human comprehension.

Theodore Roosevelt called it the "site 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 framed time capsule from the Victorian age offers a warm contrast to the hostile desert surroundings. The canyon is such a vast place. I mean 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 that touch tone for our own culture, because we're in an environment and a landscape that is so totally foreign to most of us.

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. The railroads were very instrumental in developing lasting many ways populate it the last. And. Very instrumental in getting national parks established that we in the west, particularly Grand Canyon National Park. [End of repeated audio, unedited] 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. [Guest Speaker] He was like the original person to design fast food. He developed a system where

people could go in, sit down and eat at a nice four/five course meal in about 25 minutes at a train stop. There were 15 hotels and 47 restaurants that he managed in the Santa Fe Railroad and it was his service and the quality 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. [Guest Speaker] Function, structure, and beauty were the things most architects revolved their concepts and themes around. Mary Colter added a storyline. 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. [Guest Speaker] 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. [Guest Speaker] One of the things about Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was her fascination with American Indians and archaeology and American Indian art. One of Colter's last buildings at Grand Canyon was the Desert View Watchtower. It was was completed in 1932. You know we have a building that basically the foundations are a ruin and it comes out of the canyon itself. We've got four levels in the tower, each one merging into another level as you go up.

The second floor of the tower being the Hopi room, essentially, where Fred Kabotie, who was a Hopi artist, pretty much telling one of the creation stories for Hopi with his murals and his drawings. Everything authentic. [Guest Speaker] Part of her genius in the construction of her building that she liked to employ: materials that had been used before, whether it be out at the Watchtower, where she used the old timbers from the old Grandview Hotel, which had been closed for a number of years, or here in the Hopi House, the beams, upstairs and downstairs, are all Western Union Telegraph Company poles. They were old when they were put in here some ninety-five years ago. And you can still see the marks that were made from the spikes on the workmen's shoes when they used to have to go up and repair line or whatever. [Guest Speaker] So you look at the El Tovar and right across the parking lot is the Hopi House. They're very very different structures. It's hard to kind of figure out why they are 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 Hopi's living there making pottery. You've got dances going on, so 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 the genesis of what became rustic architecture for the National Parks Service happened with Colter's earlier buildings. She was just this force, this vision, and her works at Grand Canyon are national historic landmarks. They are a real testament to the work that she had done as a woman, as an architect, and as a designer. [Narrator] Set in the remote and wild northern Rockies in Northwestern Montana, Glacier

National Park covers over fifteen hundred square miles. The park is bordered to the north by Canada, to the east by the Blackfeet Indian reservation, and to the south by the historic line of the Great Northern Railway. Hill's grand hotel, Glacier Park Lodge, sits at the eastern entrance to the park in East Glacier Montana, where tourists still arrive by rail, today onboard Amtrak's Empire Builder. While other National Parks might claim to rival such magnificent scenery, nothing elsewhere compared to the fascinating blend of cultures that guests encountered at Glacier Park Lodge. [Guest Speaker] Louis Hill promised visitors to the park a varied cultural experience that included both European elements, but also a heavy emphasis on the Blackfeet tribe traditional lands of which incorporate and are located adjacent to the park. That advertising effort took a variety of forms. Probably the most obvious is that

the Blackfeet tribe was referenced as the Glacier Park tribe. Disembarking at the park at Glacier Park station, visitors would find a Blackfeet encampment on the main lawn. A number of teepees. Entering the lobby, the Native American theme continued. There were teepees set up in the lobby, and Blackfeet chiefs were sitting by the fireplace to meet with visitors. Louis Hill certainly had an enormous respect for the tribe. He also recognized that they were a very effective marketing tool and employed them accordingly. The amount of employment that was generated by the Glacier Park Hotel Company through the Great Northern for the tribe was significant. [Guest Speaker] Everything is living from the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, the clouds, the mountains. [Narrator] Blackfeet Indian Curly Bear Wagner's ancestors played a significant role in the promotion of Glacier Park and its lodges. Today Curly Bear is a welcome speaker at Glacier Park Lodge. Sharing with guests stories of his

people. [Curly Bear] The building of Glacier National Park Lodge did provide livelihood, in a sense, because employment was being created. Jobs are being created, so our people did have the opportunity to perform up here, which was good because you could understand at that time period our culture and our traditions were taken away from us. We could no longer practice 'em. So this gives us opportunity to practice our ways, meaning our dancers do our ceremonies with a pipe, greet the people. people. Glacier National Park has always been part of our nation and so we have a lot of understanding of the mountains, of the water, of the four legged ones, the winged ones that are very much alive, and so we have the opportunity to tell them who we are. To get rid of the stereotype thinkin' about our Indian people. It was opportunity for us, also for

opportunity for the Great Northern Railroad at the time to help one another in promoting tourism. [Narrator] While the structural scale of the lobby is impressive, the charm is found in the details. The hotel's original owner was an avid outdoorsman, and hunting trophies hang from the lobby framework. Reproductions of the 1930's lampshades, adorned with Indian motifs, cast a golden light on the space. The concrete floors are scored to look like flagstone and incised with local Indian phrases that are said to translate into greetings, like "Look to the mountains" and "Sleep well.'" The huge fireplace hearth is framed by Indian designs scored and painted around the opening. Renowned western artist Charlie Russell was a frequent visitor to the lodge and there

is speculation that Russell inspired the fireplace design. [The following is repeated audio, unedited] Set in the remote and wild northern Rockies in North Western Montana, Glacier National Park covers over fifteen hundred square miles. The park is bordered to the north by Canada to the east by the Blackfeet Indian reservation and to the south by the historic line of the great northern railway. Hills Grand Hotel - Glacier Park Lodge sits at the eastern entrance to the park in East Glacier Montana where tourists still arrived by rail today. Onboard Amtrak's Empire Builder. [End of repeated audio, unedited] Yet with all the grandeur and amenities that Glacier Park Lodge has to offer, it is the park's spectacular scenery that is the real attraction.

[Guest Speaker] We're in the heart of glacier country. This is glaciation. This is the u-shaped valley for which Glacier Park gets its name. This is what has drawn people here for the better part of a century. These glaciers are moving bodies of ice. They do grind the rock beneath them. The grinding of the rock will pass sediment down into the upper lakes, which give those lakes often a brilliant and beautiful turquoise color. The geology is not the only strong point of the park. We have wildlife. We have

solitude that people come to experience. We have the beauty of the changing light and weather on these mountains. I understand why people come to Glacier Park because I myself, with my family, have been here for over 25 summers. This is truly a beautiful place. [Narrator] Leaving the lodge at Lake McDonald and the comforts of a front country hotel, visitors can journey into the interior of Glacier Park, to one of the remaining back country retreats, Sperry Chalet. It's not an easy trip as they climb high into the Rockies along the spine of the Continental Divide. [Guide Voice] Morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Gracier National Park, I'd like to welcome you out here for your rideee. today. [Guest Speaker] We take the average of 10 to 14,000 people a summer horseback through Glacier National Park.

A lot of the people are come with us horseback riding do a day trip up to Sperry Chalet. We leave out of our barn down at Lake McDonald. [Narrator[ Grand hotels were only one part of the Great Northern's plans for Glacier National Park. From the very beginning Louis Hill envisioned a variety of accommodations, connected by an intricate transportation system and a network of trails. So besides the front country hotels, Hill planned tent camps and comfortable back country chalets high in the mountains accessible only by foot or horseback. All grouped at the end of a days journey. These places were linked by an elaborate system of trails. Of the nine original chalets, only two high country chalets remain, Granite Park and Sperry Chalet. [Guest Speaker] It's about seven and a half miles from the barn to Sperry Chalet.

It's a fairly steep gradual climb, 3100 feet to about 7000 feet. The ride takes about three hours each way to complete. They'll see different types of vegetation and trees and you go through different types of terrain. [Hooves sound] [Water sound] We come up a drainage and Snyder Creek runs right along it. It follows the canyon all the way up into Sperry Chalet. Now there's not much change here at the back door of Sperry Chalet. [Chalet Host] Hi. Welcome to the Chalet. We're so glad you're here.

[Guest Speaker] The thing that makes Sperry Chalet special over other hotels in the park is the fact that it is a back country chalet. It's a very special group of people that come here. One has to either hike in or ride a horse in. There are no roads or helicopters allowed here so you have to work to get here. [Narrator] Barbara Warrington's family has managed Sperry Chalet for almost 50 years. [Warrington] The scenery at Sperry is one of its greatest draws. It is absolutely beautiful no matter what direction you look. Every morning I look down over Lake McDonald and I just stand there for about two minutes, just looking at nothing in particular, but just absorbing it all. It is beautiful here. The rock structures are so unique. The colors are so unique that it's beautiful.

[Narrator] For years, the most spectacular vistas in Glacier National Park could only be enjoyed by those hearty souls venturing out on foot or horseback. But the demand for a road crossing the mountains led to the building of the dramatic Going to the Sun Road. While increasing access to the park's remote areas, it also forever changed the visitor's experience to the park. The road provides easy access to spectacular views of mountains, lakes, waterfalls, and glacial valleys in the heart of Glacier National Park. For many visitors today, Going to the Sun Road is the Park. The 52 mile long road bisects Glacier, east to west. The narrow and winding road climbs high over the Continental Divide at Logan Pass. This engineering marvel took 16 years to build,

mostly with hand tools and dynamite. [Dynamite Sound] Even today, visitors marvel at how such a road could have been built. It is the only road in the country designated a National Historic Landmark. After it was completed in 1933, automobile tourists soon outnumbered train travelers. Grand vistas and steep fearsome drop-offs, Going to the Sun Road is a challenging drive. One of the most pleasurable and carefree ways to experience the highway is from the seat of a unique touring vehicle known as a Jammer. These charming red buses, introduced in the national parks in the 1930's, derive their name from drivers who had to jam on the gears to get up the mountain roads of Glacier. By the late 1990's, concern about safety led to the retirement of the old

fleet. But Jammer fans convinced those in charge that the old buses should be rehabilitated. Today the historic red buses are back in the Park again, and people can explore Glacier in the same delightful way they did in the 1930's. The Park's largest lodge, Many Glacier, was for decades the biggest hotel in Montana. Yet for all its magnificent massive scale, it is dwarfed by the surrounding panorama of towering jagged mountain peaks and glaciers. Dubbed the showplace of the Rockies, Many Glacier Hotel winds along the shoreline of pristine Swift Current Lake. Rooms, balconies and verandas offer views of some of the most spectacular scenery in the Park. Many Glacier is the most isolated of the Park's grand lodges, tucked into a

rugged pocket of glacial carved valleys, at the very end of a remote 12 mile road. [Guest Speaker] Both Burnell Valley and Swift Current Valley meet at the doorstep of Many Glacier Hotel. It's a grand hotel in size but it doesn't begin to compete with the backdrop of the glacial peaks behind it. It's a great outdoor experience here at the head of the lake. Many Glacier Hotel is located in the heart of the Park's mountains, with hiking trails radiating outward to some of the best locations for exploring glaciers and spotting bighorn sheep and bears. Park ranger Bob Adams has been leading guests through Glacier country for over 25 years. [Adams] We have grizzly bears here. We have black bears. These bears are known to be reclusive. They are

known not to bother people for the most part, but there is always that element of wildness, the presence of bears who are more powerful than we. And who can present extreme danger in rare occasions to people traveling in the Park. Glacier Park gives the opportunity for people of all physical abilities to see and experience the beauty of the Park. And it's actually possible to see bears from the balcony of the Many Glacier Hotel. Early morning or late afternoon, a person can scan the slopes of Mts. Henkel and Alton, and there is a good possibility that that viewer will see either black bear or grizzly bear. [Narrator] About an hour and a half's drive east of Portland, sits Oregon's highest

mountain: Mt. Hood. Like Rainier, it is one of the volcanic peaks of the Northwest Cascade Range. Perched six thousand feet up the south side of the mountain is the awesome Timberline Lodge, an amazing achievement, born on the heels of one of America's darkest moments. [Guest Speaker] Timberline was built in the Depression, and I think it still stands as a symbol of hard work and determination and quality. [Guest Speaker] What it reflects, a time of our history, the Great Depression and the American public's willingness and ability to recover from that. [Guest Speaker] And all Americans should be proud of what we can do when we pull together on something like that, and given the opportunity to do it, and to do our very best. [Narrator] In the early 1930's, America was reeling in the midst of the

Great Depression. [Guest Speaker] It was a crisis in this country, unparalleled, other than the Civil War. And Franklin Roosevelt was elected into office, in part because he promised to bring the country out of that. The hotel is a product of its time, we have recreation growing, you had a skiing industry that was clamoring for this opportunity for a hotel on a mountain. You had the Great Depression, and then FDR 's response to that, and the New Deal. [Narrator] Part of the New Deal was the Works Progress Administration. The WPA was charged with funding projects that could employ and train an American workforce decimated by the Depression. Timberline Lodge was intended to teach new trades to hundreds of workers. Unlike other lodges, it was built with public money and on Forest Service lands, not in a National Park. Construction began in 1935, with more than 600 trainees taking part.

Timberline was completed in 1937 and dedicated by President Roosevelt, and Depression era art decorates nearly every wall. [Guest Speaker] There were a number of artists on the WPA project who are of national stature. Howard Sewell painted a number of oil paintings for the lodge, including two large murals that were used in the Cascade dining room for many years. In this room, the Blue Ox bar, there are glass murals that were executed by Virginia Darcy. First she did drawings and then cut the glass to fit in place. They show Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox, Babe. [Guest Speaker] It was a real renaissance in art in America during the Roosevelt time, and this building is a personification of that. The WPA had a teaching component

to it. So they had some good lead craftsmen up here, but they were also teachers and taught other people to be ironsmiths and wood carvers and weavers. [Narrator] Seattle personifies the pioneering spirit of the Pacific Northwest. Sandwiched between the Puget Sound and the rugged terrain of the Cascade mountain range, it is a major metropolis bordered by some of America's most beautiful natural areas, and shadowed by one of the world's great mountains. [Guest Speaker] Mt. Rainier is the icon of the Northwest. You can see it from the east side, from the west side, from Seattle/Tacoma, even from Portland Oregon. When people

think of National Parks, they think of Mt. Rainier as one of the finest examples of that. [Guest Speaker] It's certainly a great lump of a mountain, beautiful white cupcakes sitting over there on the horizon. Rainier is really fundamental to our sense of place here in the Northwest, those of us who live here. Paradise Inn is an opportunity for the public to come here and slow down and experience a little bit of the old world. Of the Paradise Inn and the meadows of Paradise and the views of the mountain all are just intertwined. And it creates an experience that's unforgettable. [Narrator] Mt. Rainier National Park was established in 1899 and the Inn built in 1916 at the dawn of the National Park Service. Paradise Inn represents an early attempt to provide comfortable accommodations inside a National Park. In 1916, the Rainier National Park Company was formed and work

began on Paradise Inn. Patterned after European lodges, the Inn is dominated by its massive three-story shingled roof. Likened to a Swiss chalet, it's alpine design fits well with its environment. [Guest Speaker] The structure elements expressed on the interior and exterior in their native form expressed the natural features of the Park. We have the timbers that we see that came from the forests around here. They represent the trees right here at timberline. [Narrator] Ironically, it was an 1885 forest fire which unexpectedly provided the distinctive timbers for the construction of Paradise Inn. [Guest Speaker] But it went through quickly enough that it didn't destroy the heart of the wood. It just really pretty much burned the bark and killed the trees. It was called the silver forest because they had weathered to a wonderful silver color. Here's some of the examples. These are the columns in the building that support the frame. And we have a whole, our own silver forest here in the lobby and in the dining room of the

Inn. The mezzanine in the great hall, the lobby of this wonderful building was added primarily for structural support. The building itself is resisting, trying to resist immense world record snowfalls that we get up here at Paradise. [Guest Speaker] In the lobby here on days when you can't see the mountain, you get an experience of being in the forest. It brings the outdoors in and you don't leave it. You have the massive stone fireplaces that came from the mountain and represent the mountain and the massive geological elements. [Narrator] The Inn features two types of lampshades in the main hall. The small conical lampshades near the ceiling date from the 1930's. The larger lampshades are a simple design made of parchment paper and painted with wild flowers native to

the Park. By the mid 80's the original set of shades had become too worn for more than 50 years of use. Dale Thompson, a retired Park naturalist and wildlife artist was called in to paint new ones. [Thompson] Some two years after I left the National Park Service and had begun my new business in wildlife art, the Park staff approached me about my interest in painting new lampshades to replace those that had hung here for 50 years. And it had a great deal of appeal to me because it was an opportunity to give something back to an organization that had been good to me for some 20 years of my life. I was required to do these new shades of the very same materials as the originals using the heavy tag board and lacing them to the metal hoops with raffia. I had to work in the very same art medium, which was just good old school children's tempera. There were a total of 74

shades, so I literally had to shut down my wildlife art business for a period of between three and four months to complete them. I still consider Mt. Rainier and Paradise my second home. It's wonderful for me to come up here to enjoy the Park's smell like just any other visitor. But also to come up to this historic building. Particularly gratifying for me to know that the lampshades I've painted for the Inn may be here for another 50 years. That gives me, leaves me with a good feeling. [Guest Speaker] The Park has a lot of variety. Old growth forests, glaciers, wildlife, beautiful wild flowers. It's an experience that's not to be missed. [Guest Speaker] I think often we want the weather to be sunny and clear. But really there

is a lovely soft quality on a wet day with the world kind of closed in upon itself. [Narrator] Ruth Kirk has lived in the Pacific Northwest for over 40 years and has written books about National Parks and wilderness areas. One of them, 'Sunrise to Paradise' is a celebration of the history and beauty of Mt. Rainier. [Kirk] We know there are people that think Ranier's a myth because it doesn't show every day. But it's not a hussy that's gonna just show it all, every day. There are days just of being very quiet behind the cloak of the gray sky. I'm certainly enjoying wandering around under those circumstances in the forest. Up in the high country of Paradise, the flowers get all spotted with the droplets and sometimes you'll see a little, perhaps a deer wandering through the mist, oblivious of it. I think the deer is

not yearning for sunshine at all and takes it as it comes. [Narrator] After a day on the mountain or in the meadows, visitors are grateful for the warmth of Paradise Inn. Its rustic charm complements the Park experience. 330 miles to the south of Timberline, tucked away in southwestern Oregon Siskiyou Mountains, is one of the state's best kept secrets. Oregon Caves is among this country's first national monuments. Set aside in 1909 to preserve the marble caverns that delve deep into the mountainside, they are adjoined by the Oregon Caves Chateau, a bark covered lodge that seems to have grown out of the forest as naturally as the trees that surround it.

Its remote location makes it the least known of the lodges of the Pacific Northwest. At 480 acres Oregon Caves is among the smallest National Monuments in the United States. John Roth is the Natural Resources Specialist at the Monument, and is an authority on the Oregon Caves. [Roth] Caves tell us a lot because of their three-dimensional window into the past under the earth so they expose things in three dimensions. And especially they don't have any vegetation to cover them over, so all the geology is exposed, what geologists call a 100% exposure, which is the geological dream. The end result in this particular cave, we can see over 200 million years of geological activity exposed in the walls of the cave. [Guide] Go on up this stairway. Stay to the left. Don't hit your head. [Narrator] Visitors to the Park are taken through the caves in groups of sixteen on a

90-minute tour filled with fascinating and often very unusual formations. The caves offer a glimpse at the Earth's interior decoration. [Guest Speaker] Another neat thing about this cave is the bedrock itself is very complicated and illustrates perhaps the most complicated geology in America in this region. The best known formations in the cave are these kind of composite drapery stalagmites that are also a form of flow stone, as if the rock is actually flowing down hill. [Repeated audio, unedited] Seattle personifies the pioneering spirit of the Pacific Northwest. Sandwiched between the Puget Sound and the rugged terrain of the Cascade mountain

range. It is a major metropolis bordered by some of America's most beautiful natural areas and shadowed by one of the world's great mountains. Mt. Rainier is the icon of the northwest. You can see it from the east side from the west side from Seattle-Tacoma even from Portland Oregon. When people think of national parks they think of Mt. Rainier as one of the finest examples of that. It's certainly a great lump of a mountain, a beautiful white cupcake sitting over there on the horizon. Rainier is really fundamental to our sense of place here in the northwest. Those of us who live here. Paradise Inn is an opportunity for the public to come here and slow down. And experience a little bit of the old world. But the Paradise and the meadows of Paradise and views of the mountain all are just intertwined and it creates an experience that's unforgettable. Mt.. Rainier National Park was established in 1899

and the Inn built in 1916 at the dawn of the National Park Service Paradise Inn represents an early attempt to provide comfortable accommodations inside a national park. [End of repeated audio, unedited] [Narrator] After a day on the mountain, or in the meadows, visitors are grateful for the warmth of Paradise Inn. Its rustic charm complements the Park experience. [Guest Speaker] Everybody has a perception when they come to these types of facilities. You need to be willing to experience the outdoor. That's what these facilities were built for. Not necessarily as hotels but more of a place to rest during the evening. Spend your day time out in the Park enjoying the nature. These buildings are not full of the modern conveniences, telephones, TVs. We don't have them. [Guest Speaker] I'm not sure that television would really enhance your experience of the

mountain. You might then be tempted to stay in and watch some sitcom instead of watch the sunset. [Running water] The things that you can do somewhere else, do them somewhere else, and come to the mountain for the special qualities that it has to offer. [Guest Speaker] Nothing makes me feel better than to see people, and families, and international visitors just sitting in the lodge, enjoying the fireplace, enjoying their families and feeling very comfortable. [Guest Speaker] I think the Inn has charm and appeal to us, partly because it is old. Something that is old, that is familiar, that's the same building that our parents, grandparents saw. That has a great appeal. [The following is repeated audio, unedited] About an hour and a half's drive east of Portland sits Oregon's highest

mountain: Mt. Hood. Like Rainier, it is one of the volcanic peaks of the Northwest Cascade Range. Perched six thousand feet up the south side of the mountain is the awesome Timberline Lodge, an amazing achievement born on the heels of one of America's darkest moments. Timberline was built in the Depression. And I think it still stands as a symbol of hard work and determination and quality. But it reflects a time of our history of the Great Depression and the American public's willingness and ability to recover from that. And all Americans should be proud of what we can do when we pull together on something like that. And given the opportunity to do it and to do our very best. In the early 1930s. America was reeling in the midst of the

Great Depression. That was a crisis in this country. Unparalleled other than the Civil War. And Franklin Roosevelt was elected to office in part because he promised to bring the country out of that. The hotel is a product of its time. We had recreation growing, you had a skiing industry that was clamoring for this opportunity a hotel on a mountain. You had the Great Depression and then FDR's response to that in the New Deal. Part of the New Deal was the Works Progress Administration. The WPA was charged with funding projects that could employ and train an American workforce decimated by the Depression. Timberline Lodge was intended to teach new trades to hundreds of workers. Unlike other lodges it was built with public money and on Forest Service lands, not in a national park. Construction began in 1935 with more than 600 trainees taking part. Timberline was completed in

1937 and dedicated by President Roosevelt. [End of repeated audio, unedited] [Guest Speaker] One of the design schemes for the building and one of the parameters was to use local materials. They wanted to showcase local materials in the construction, as well as local artisans and craftsmen and architects in developing the lodge. The lodge itself, it grows right out of the mountain. The way it's been designed and and sited on the mountain. [Narrator] Timberline's original structure has remained virtually unchanged for over 60 years. Built in three main sections, the two side wings are joined by an enormous three-story hexagonal headhouse featuring a center 80-foot high chimney, with three hearths on each floor. [Guest Speaker] The main headhouse fireplace is sort of a central focus of the building. The rock work is so big and massive that it seems to be the focal

point for the whole room. This is my favorite room in the whole building, and we call it the heart of the mountain area, and it's the fireplace is all the original rock work and the handling wrought iron and you've got the wonderful handrails that are made of the railroad tracks. The room itself has the same six sides and the fireplace has the same six sides and the big tall pillars have the same six sides, so it's a great way to see that the architects and the blueprints and the craftsmen all work together hand-in-hand. [Narrator] Echoing the hexagonal theme, three massive iron chandeliers light the main level. The headhouse is also home to the Cascade Dining Room and on the upper level the Rams Head bar, one of two in the lodge. The upper level also has a dining area featuring several little nooks and alcoves, [The following is repeated audio, unedited] and Depression Era art decorates nearly every wall.

330 miles to the south of Timberline tucked away in southwestern Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains is one of the state's best kept secrets. Oregon Caves is among this country's first national monuments set aside in 1989 to preserve the marble caverns that delve deep into the mountainside. They are adjoined by the Oregon Caves Château, a bark-covered lodge that seems to have grown out of the forest as naturally as the trees that surround it. Its remote location makes it the least known of the lodges of the Pacific Northwest. [End of repeated audio, unedited] [Guest Speaker] The Chateau is an integral part of the whole landscape here. It's a neat old resort emblematic of the old resorts round turn of the century. A refuge, if you will. A place to rest and recuperate and get away from it all. [Guest Speaker] It's quiet, oh, the quiet.

There'll be very few places where you'll go that is absolute quiet. [Narrator] Completed in 1934, the ten-sided, six story structure sprouts up from a ravine and seems to be a natural part of its environment. The Chateau was the vision of a local, virtually unknown contractor, a man named Gust Liam. [Guest Speaker] He happened to be a very skilled carpenter who could also serve as contractor. He had enough talent to do architectural design and you have to say, when you look at Oregon Cave Chateau, that it's a brilliant piece of work. Just describing it, it's so irregular. All of its sides are different. The window shapes and sizes are very different. Doors are different, and yet the thing works. [Guest Speaker] Gust Liam knew the area and knew the material so that made a difference. There was a master plan

by the Forest Service, but he found the spot, the ravine. And what he looked at was a way of being environmentally sensitive, or providing a very low story facade as you approached it. And then to tumble the building down the hillside. So because he built in this area he knew how to pick the lumbers, pick the finished materials, and really make it all work on a site. The stairwell, as an example, uses all the local materials and they're orchestrated. There's a crescendo of the large massive post of Doug Fir. Then there are the carrying elements that support the stairs. You know you're in the Siskiyou forest, in a rustic setting, and all of it absolutely blends. The colors absorb, and the light bounces off it. The fireplace, which is rather unusual being double sided, is a massive stone that goes directly down to the foundation.

Liam saw a way of relating the flow of water the building by actually channelizing a flow through the floor of the living room, and then out into the ravine. So the waterfall that trickles over the edge into a lagoon, then is channelized down under the floor of the dining room, so that while you're sitting there you can hear the water. [Trickling water sound] So you're looking at the walls of glass out into the ravine and then the water flowing in the continuous sound of waterfall is part of the rusticity, is part of the character of the place. The chateau's warm golden ambience is as deep as the forest that surrounds it. The rough stone of the fireplace, peeled log beams

and wood paneling, create an aura as mysterious as the caves from which it gets its name. None of the 23 guest rooms are alike and nearly all feature distinctive Monterey furniture. The chateau remains virtually unchanged since it opened in the 30's. A comfortable Old World resort, stuck in a time warp. [Guest Speaker] I think that humans have a potentially fatal flaw, and that is that we become obsessed with ourselves too much, and both the natural beauty of the cave and the natural beauty of the Chateau helps us get away from ourselves. [Guest Speaker] I loved the place and I'll always love it. It's a beautiful place and it's a wonderful thing. Thank God it's still here. [Narrator] 130 miles northeast of Oregon Caves ,near the point where the Siskiyou

Mountains converge with the southern peaks of the Cascade Range is Crater Lake. Cupped in a half million years of volcanic accumulation, the midnight blue lake is one of nature's most majestic surprises. [Guest Speaker] Crater Lake National Park is one of those places, for me, where I go to and I have a feeling come over me. When I come up that rim, and I get the first view of the lake, it's a euphoric feeling for me. [Guest Speaker] Where else can you spend the night on the edge of a caldera, made by a mighty eruption, over 7000 years ago, and contemplate the sunset and the sunrise. I mean there aren't very many places like this. [Guest speaker] The rehabilitation has made the lodge complete. Basically for the first time in history, today

is really the finest hour of Crater Lake Lodge. [Narrator] In 1885, the lake was visited by a man who would become the founder of Crater Lake National Park, William Gladstone Steel. [Guest Speaker] And as the story goes, back in Kansas he looked at a newspaper that wrapped his lunch and saw an article on Crater Lake and resolved that he was going to come out and he was going to see Crater Lake. And once he did, he worked tirelessly until Crater Lake was established as a National Park in 1902. Steel became the park's first concessionaire, but early tent villages he set up did not match his grand dreams for the area. In 1909, he teamed up with a Portland developer to build a lodge on the rim of Crater Lake. The lodge would open some five years later, but the construction never really ended. The next sixty years would be a long

misadventure of patching and repairing a crumbling monolith. [Guest Speaker] The lodge's problems stem from typical business failure. Reason is under-capitalization. The concessionaire who became involved with it didn't have enough money, didn't know what he was into. So not enough money to start with, a very short construction season, even when it was under way, conspired to produce a lodge that was dramatically under-built and took forever to be completed. It was continuously under construction, back from the time of World War I, on through the 1920's, into the 1930's. It was in varying stages of construction and it was never actually really completed. A tattered building was not enough to keep it from becoming a very special place to the people of the Northwest. The lodge provided accommodations next to one of the world's true wonders.

Crater Lake Lodge had become unsafe and was facing demolition in 1984. There would be no lodge today were it not for a local public outcry that led to its complete reconstruction. Like at Timberline, it was the will and determination of the people of Oregon that came to the rescue. At the head of this campaign was the Historic Preservation League of Oregon and Eric Eisemann. [Eisemann] We ended up with over 4000 testimonials, postcards, letters, that just came flooding into the office from people telling us about their experiences at the lodge and why those experiences were important in their lives. So armed with that information, we went back to the National Park Service and said, look at this. This is unanimous support. [Narrator] The park service got the message. And in 1991 Congress funded a rehabilitation that would finally make the original idea of Crater Lake

Lodge a reality. [Guest Speaker] The first thing we did was identify the character defining features of the historic lodge and we decided to retain all of those character defining features in the rehabilitation. [Guest Speaker] There was a combination of reconstruction, rehabilitation, and restoration. So it was a combination of all those three elements that came together with the Lodge. [Narrator] From the outside, the new lodge looks just like the old. But inside, it's a modern hotel which preserves many of the original's features. [Guest Speaker]The stone fireplace, which is an historic element and a character defining feature in the dining room, and in the Great Hall, were identified and numbered before we took them down, each individual stone, and then those were put aside again and then once ready they were put back exactly as they were. Other elements include the log handling inside and those are actually segments

of large logs that were cut and then placed as a finished material on the inside of the lobby, the Great Hall, and the dining room. Another major element is the historic stair inside the Great Hall, and it was a peeled log stair. We use the major log components to use in the reconstruction of the stair. [Narrator] The Lodge's central Great Hall forms a natural meeting area where people can relax, read a book, or wait for a table in the dining room. The new lodge opened in 1995. And unlike the original it is built to last. The most popular gathering area is the large terrace balcony that faces the rim. It's the perfect place for watching the sunset or sunrise with a cup of coffee. Almost 100 years after William Steel's vision of Crater Lake National Park

became a reality, the park is thriving beyond his wildest dreams. Today it's visited by nearly a half a million people annually and is one of the most popular parks in the Pacific Northwest. [Guest Speaker] Areas like this are international treasures. They're unique and they're pristine and they're preserved for education and scientific study and enjoyment of the public. [Guest Speaker] I think all of us have a share in a common heritage, and that heritage is our natural resources base, and it's also our cultural and historic resource base. And that's why Crater Lake is such an important place because it's part of our birthright. That needs to be protected. [Narrator] Today, Crater Lake Lodge stands in its final glory. The elegant idea of a bygone era. While the historic structure no longer bears the ragged signs of aging, the heart of the lodge remains the same. It is

still a wonder of man perched on the edge of a wonder of nature. [Guest Speaker] I think the greatest gift that you get from Crater Lake is the opportunity to sit at this Lodge, rocking chair out on the porch, and contemplate this place, and realize how insignificant human beings really have been.