Painted Desert Inn: The New Deal on the High Desert

The Painted Desert Inn sits on the north rim of the Petrified Forest, at the end of a short road that climbs to a promontory above the badlands. From the terrace, the desert opens in every direction in shades of lavender, pink, burgundy, and grey, the banded ash and mudstone formations of the Chinle Formation catching light differently at every hour. The building behind you is one of the finest examples of Civilian Conservation Corps construction in the National Park System.

The original structure at this site was a private roadhouse called Stone Tree House, built in the nineteen twenties from petrified wood. The National Park Service acquired the site in nineteen thirty-six and commissioned the Civilian Conservation Corps to rebuild it. The CCC workers, young men from across the country enrolled in the Depression-era work program, dismantled the original structure and replaced it with a building designed to reflect Pueblo Revival architecture: flat roof, vigas protruding through the walls, portales shading the entrance, the whole thing constructed from the same banded stone as the surrounding desert.

The Fred Harvey Company leased the completed building in nineteen forty-seven and commissioned Hopi artist Fred Kabotie to paint murals inside. Kabotie was already one of the most respected Native American painters in the country, known for his depictions of Hopi ceremonial life and commissioned for major projects including the Grand Canyon's Desert View Watchtower. The murals he created at the Painted Desert Inn are drawn from Hopi cosmological and ceremonial traditions and remain in place today. They are the reason the interior is not just a handsome old building but a room you remember.

The Fred Harvey Company closed operations at the inn in nineteen sixty-three, citing structural damage, and moved to the new visitor center complex. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in nineteen eighty-seven. The National Park Service restored it in two thousand one. It now operates as a museum and bookstore. The murals are still on the walls.