Bryce Canyon National Park is an American national park located in southwestern Utah. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon, which despite its name, is not a canyon, but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by frost weathering and stream erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rocks. The red, orange, and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views for park visitors. Bryce Canyon National Park is much smaller, and sits at a much higher elevation than nearby Zion National Park. The rim at Bryce varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet.
Gilbert Stanley Underwood (1890–1960) was an American architect best known for his National Park lodges. Born in 1890, Underwood received his B.A. from Yale in 1920 and a M.A. from Harvard in 1923. After opening an office in Los Angeles that year, he became associated with Daniel Ray Hull of the National Park Service. This led to a commission with the Utah Parks Company of the Union Pacific Railroad which was developing the parks in hopes of producing destinations for travelers. During this time Underwood designed lodges for Cedar Breaks National Monument, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park. His surviving Utah Parks Company buildings are considered exceptional examples of the Rustic style of architecture, and are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition, Underwood was contracted to design Yosemite National Park's The Ahwahnee, also on the National Register and probably his greatest triumph in the Rustic style.
The Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railroad, owned and operated restaurants, lodging, and bus tours in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and Cedar Breaks National Monument from the 1920s until 1972. Operating as a concessionaire of the National Park Service, the company operated from a base in Cedar City, Utah. The company's bus tours connected there with Union Pacific trains as well as tour buses from Los Angeles, San Francisco and other west coast cities, and offered a loop tour of the region's parks and monuments, escorted by a Utah Parks Company driver/guide.
Zion Lodge is located in Zion National Park, Utah, United States. The lodge was designed in 1924 as a compromise solution between its developer, the Utah Parks Company, which wanted a large hotel, and National Park Service director Stephen Mather, who desired smaller-scale development. The Utah Parks Company had been formed in 1923 as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad, and was, like many similar programs, intended to stimulate passenger rail traffic to the national parks of southwest Utah.
National Park Service rustic – sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture – is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service (NPS) through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings. The early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture. Architects, landscape architects and engineers combined native wood and stone with convincingly native styles to create visually appealing structures that seemed to fit naturally within the majestic landscapes. Examples of the style can be found in numerous types of National Park structures, including entrance gateways, hotels and lodges, park roads and bridges, visitor centers, trail shelters, informational kiosks, and even mundane maintenance and support facilities. Many of these buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Bryce Canyon Lodge is a lodging facility in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, United States, built between 1924 and 1925 using local materials. Designed by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the lodge is an excellent example of National Park Service rustic design, and the only remaining completely original structure that Underwood designed for Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
Grand Canyon Depot, also known as Grand Canyon Railroad Station, was constructed in 1909–10 for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, in what is now Grand Canyon National Park. It is one of three remaining railroad depots in the United States built with logs as the primary structure material. The station is within 100 metres (330 ft) of the rim of the canyon, opposite the El Tovar Hotel, also built by the railroad. The depot is designated a National Historic Landmark.
The Grand Canyon Lodge is a hotel and cabins complex at Bright Angel Point on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, who designed a number of other hotels in national parks for the Utah Parks Company and other concessioners. Built in 1927–28, the Grand Canyon Lodge resort complex consists of the Main Lodge building, 23 deluxe cabins, and 91 standard cabins, some of which were moved to the north rim campground in 1940. All guests are housed in cabins detached from the main lodge, which serves as a dining, concessions and service facility. Constructed of native Kaibab limestone and timber, the complex was designed to harmonize with its rocky and forested setting. The Grand Canyon Lodge complex is notable for its setting and rustic design, as well as its status as the only complete surviving lodge and cabin complex in the national parks.
Bryce Canyon Airport is a public airport located four miles (6 km) north of Bryce Canyon, in Garfield County, Utah, United States. It is owned by Garfield County.
The Rainbow Point Comfort Station and Overlook Shelter in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah were designed in 1939 by A.V. Jory of the National Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs in the National Park Service Rustic style. Located at the southern end of the Rim Road at Rainbow Point, the buildings were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1940.
The Bryce Inn, also known as the Bryce General Store, in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah was designed by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood and built in 1932. It was the last major building designed by Underwood for the Utah Parks Company. Designed in the National Park Service Rustic style, the Inn served as the center of a set of "housekeeping cabins" for park visitors, providing a cafeteria, laundry and vending facilities. However, the housekeeping cabins have since been removed, changing the Inn's relationship to its surroundings.
The Old Administration Building at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, U.S.A., also known as the Bryce Canyon Nature Museum, was the first National Park Service building built within the park. Located near Sunrise Point in a heavily used portion of the park, the building was designed by the National Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs in the National Park Service Rustic style preferred at the time for park structures. It is in the immediate vicinity of the Bryce Inn.
The Zion – Mount Carmel Highway is a 25-mile (40 km) long road in Washington and Kane counties in southern Utah, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.
The historic building now operated as the restaurant Jakes Chaparral had a number of prior uses including Kanab Lodge, Parry Cafeteria, Utah Parks Building and Wok Inn restaurant in Kanab, Utah, USA. The original section of the lodge is a house built in 1885, which was expanded between 1928 and 1932 by the Utah Parks Company to serve as a rest stop for tourists about halfway between the north rim of the Grand Canyon and Zion or Bryce Canyon National Parks.
The historical buildings and structures of Zion National Park represent a variety of buildings, interpretive structures, signs and infrastructure associated with the National Park Service's operations in Zion National Park, Utah. Structures vary in size and scale from the Zion Lodge to road culverts and curbs, nearly all of which were designed using native materials and regional construction techniques in an adapted version of the National Park Service Rustic style. A number of the larger structures were designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, while many of the smaller structures were designed or coordinated with the National Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs. The bulk of the historic structures date to the 1920s and 1930s. Most of the structures of the 1930s were built using Civilian Conservation Corps labor.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Bryce Canyon National Park.
The Bryce Canyon National Park Scenic Trails Historic District is a historic trail system in the central part of Bryce Canyon National Park in southwestern Garfield County, Utah, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).
The Horse Barn at Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, is a rustic structure built in 1929, shortly after the National Park Service assumed control of the new park lands from the U.S. Forest Service. The Park Service set about improving facilities in the park, using a design by the Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as an example of NPS design work of the late 1920s.
The Bryce Canyon Lodge Historic District surrounds and includes the Bryce Canyon Lodge in Bryce Canyon National Park, as well as the survivors of a large complex of buildings that comprised the core of the park's visitor services area in the 1930s.
The Loop C Comfort Station and the Loop D Comfort Station are public toilet facilities in Bryce Canyon National Park's North Campground, individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 for their significance as structures relating to the park's administrative infrastructure, and for their integrity as examples of rustic architecture. The National Park Service rustic style structures were built in 1935 as part of the first planned campground in the park by Civilian Conservation Corps labor. Plans were developed by the National Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs. Similar facilities in Loops A and B were not built until the 1950s.
