In 1892, miner and entrepreneur Pete Berry began extracting high quality copper ore from the mine he established on Horseshoe Mesa, 3000 feet below Grandview Point on the Grand Canyon’s south rim. Transporting ore from the mine up to the rim, and then on to a distant smelter, was grueling and expensive. That high cost, and decreasing copper prices, hampered profitability.
So, Berry diverted his attention from the backbreaking mining operation to recently developing tourism at the Grand Canyon. A stagecoach had begun bringing tourists from Flagstaff to the south rim near Grandview Point. Berry and his wife Martha capitalized by opening the Grandview Hotel in 1897. Constructed from ponderosa pine, became the premier hub for early Canyon tourism.
In addition to stunning views and immediate access to the Grandview Trail, the hotel offered the luxury of hot meals and comfortable beds, so welcome after the bone-jarring 12-hour stagecoach ride.
Sadly for the Berrys, the Grandview Hotel’s success was short-lived. In 1901, the Santa Fe Railroad completed a spur to Grand Canyon Village, 11 miles west of the Grandview. Tourists overwhelmingly chose the train over the stagecoach, and the Grandview quickly lost its clientele.
In 1907, the Berrys sold the hotel to newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, who eventually dismantled it, leaving no trace at Grandview Point. However, some of the hotel’s big ponderosa timbers were used in construction of the Desert View Watchtower, where they remain today.
This episode of Earth Notes was funded in part by Pink Jeep Tours, written by Steve Schwartz, and produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.
