The Railroad and the Lodge

Bryce Canyon owes much of its early fame to a railroad that never actually reached it. In the nineteen twenties the Union Pacific Railroad wanted more passengers on its western lines, so it invented a tour. It bundled Bryce, Zion, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and Cedar Breaks into a single loop it advertised as the Grand Circle, then hauled tourists by train to Cedar City and bused them the rest of the way through its own Utah Parks Company.

To give those travelers somewhere grand to sleep, the railroad built the Bryce Canyon Lodge. Construction began in nineteen twenty four and finished by the early summer of nineteen twenty five, to a design by the architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood. It is a showpiece of what became known as national park rustic style, built on a stone base with oversized log framing so it seems to grow out of the forest.

Its most curious feature is the roof, whose wavy shingle pattern creates an optical illusion that the whole roofline is rippling. The lodge is the only fully original Underwood structure still standing among the parks of that Grand Circle, and in nineteen eighty seven it was named a National Historic Landmark. The trains are long gone, but Underwood's lodge still welcomes guests every summer.