El Tovar By Fred Harvey. A New Hotel At Grand Canyon Of Arizona

SIMPSON, W. H. [TEXT BY]

Publication: Rand, McNally & Co, 1908, Chicago

First edition. 8vo. Color pictorial designed wrappers, 31 [1] pp., illustrated mostly from photographs, drawings, map. 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 330 feet 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 very attractive cover is by Louis Benton Akin (1868–1913) who grew up in Portland. He studied art in New York with Merritt Chase and Frank Dumond before traveling to Arizona to paint the Hopi in 1903. The appeal of Arizona had been its climate, which helped Akin recover from tuberculosis, but the land grew on him so much that he spent most of the rest of his life there. He lived in Flagstaff, on the Hopi reservation in Oraibi and in the El Tovar Hotel on the south rim of the Grand Canyon. He was inducted into the Hopi’s secret society and given the name “Mapli “upon finishing a series of paintings of the tribe—this means sleeveless and described the type of shirt he always wore. The booklet provides attractive views of the El Tovar Hotel including both exterior and interior attractions to include 24 halftone views and 3 floor plans. The last page is a map of the route of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway from Chicago to San Francisco. Minor wear to the spine and a tiny chip to top of corner of rear cover, else a near fine copy.

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