Desert View Watchtower — watchtower
TeKappa · CC BY-SA 4.0

Desert View Watchtower

  • Elevation7,451 m
  • 2 min read
  • 36.044° N 111.826° W

Interesting facts

  • Hidden behind the rough stone walls is a steel framework, engineered by bridge builders of the Santa Fe Railway.
  • Before building, Colter spent about six months studying prehistoric towers, made a clay model and raised a 70-foot platform on the rim to test the views.
  • Colter refused to have the stones cut so they kept their weathered faces, and she made workers tear down and rebuild sections that did not satisfy her.
  • Some stones set into the walls carry genuine petroglyphs, brought to the site from near Ash Fork, Arizona.
  • A band of white stones near the top fades out as it circles the tower, a decorative trick Colter borrowed from Chaco Canyon.
  • The ceiling logs of the Kiva Room were salvaged from the old Grandview Hotel, one of the earliest lodges on the South Rim.
  • In Hopi tradition, the story in Kabotie's central mural concerns a chief's son who first travelled down the Colorado River and became the first Snake Priest.
  • Fred Geary's paintings on the upper floors reproduce rock art from Abo in New Mexico, images whose originals were later destroyed.
  • The Hopi artist Chester Dennis, lead dancer at the tower's dedication in 1933, carved incised petroglyph designs into the interior.
  • Black mirrors known as reflectoscopes let visitors view the canyon as a darkened, softened reflection.

Why it is worth it

The Desert View Watchtower rises on the eastern end of the Grand Canyon's South Rim, a round stone tower 70 feet high that looks as if it had been standing there for centuries. It was completed in 1932 to designs by Mary Colter, the architect of the Fred Harvey Company, who built a whole series of buildings for the canyon rim. She modelled it on the watchtowers of the Ancestral Puebloans — the closest prototypes are the towers of Hovenweep — and had it built of rough local stone laid to look weathered and irregular, so that it seems to grow out of the rim rather than sit on it.

The views are the widest along this rim. From the observation level of the tower, at about 7,522 feet the highest point on the South Rim, the eye takes in the eastern Grand Canyon, stretching away to the east. Inside, the tower is a work of art in its own right. The base, known as the Kiva Room, echoes a Puebloan ceremonial chamber, and above it the Hopi Room is painted with murals by the Hopi artist Fred Kabotie, from Second Mesa, including the Snake Legend, which tells of the Snake Clan's link to the canyon. Further decoration in the style of rock art was added by Fred Geary.

The tower is part of the Mary Jane Colter Buildings, a National Historic Landmark designated in 1987, and it stands within its own historic district. Climb slowly and look up the open central shaft at the painted ceiling before stepping out to the view — Colter intended the building to lead from the enclosed, painted interior out to the canyon, and the sequence still works.

Getting there

Desert View lies at the eastern end of the South Rim road, more than 20 miles (about 32 km) east of Grand Canyon Village and close to the park's east entrance. Flagstaff, the nearest city, is about 95 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Grand Canyon National Park Airport (GCN) at Tusayan, about 31 km away.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Arizona 18The Most Beautiful Places in the United States 228The Most Remarkable Watchtowers 5The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses in the United States 6The Most Beautiful Castles, Palaces and Fortresses 302

From the encyclopaedia

Desert View Watchtower, also known as the Indian Watchtower at Desert View, is a 70-foot (21 m)-high stone building located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon within Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, United States. The tower is located at Desert View, more than 20 miles (32 km) to the east of the main developed area at Grand Canyon Village, toward the east entrance to the park. The four-story structure, completed in 1932, was designed by American architect Mary Colter, an employee of the Fred Harvey Company who also created and designed many other buildings in the Grand Canyon vicinity including Hermit's Rest and the Lookout Studio. The interior contains murals by Fred Kabotie.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

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