Chapter 3
On September 17, 1901, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway commissioned its first train to run to the Grand Canyon’s Village, thus helping adventure-seeking tourists get to the country’s newest popular vacation destination much quicker and offering a more comfortable ride than the uncomfortable wagons, stagecoaches, and buckboards. By the end of 1901, visitors were beginning to come to the Grand Canyon in droves. The majority of the train passengers were wealthy and expected only the finest accommodations. With not many places to lodge within the village itself and no real comfort in what they did have to choose from, the Santa Fe Railway company decided that they needed the appropriate accommodations for their higher-class patrons. The El Tovar Hotel would become the pinnacle of luxurious lodging in a landscape that was considered inhospitable at best.
The Fred Harvey Company was the key factor in making this lodge a “Castle in the Rhine.” The founder, Fred Harvey, was born June 27, 1835 in London, England. At the tender age of 15, Fred Harvey emigrated from Liverpool, England, to New York City in 1850. He began working in restaurants in New York City and New Orleans and eventually opened his own restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri. When that restaurant failed, Fred Harvey worked as a freight agent for railroads and traveled through the Great Plains of the United States. He saw how appalling dining accommodations were for railroad passengers traveling to North America’s southwestern region in 1876, so Fred Harvey entered into an agreement with the Santa Fe Railway to start a business providing good food and hospitality to the weary train travelers. This is how the famous Harvey Girls got their start. Young single ladies were given employment opportunities to serve food, be hospitable, and cater to the train passengers. The Harvey Girls became the signature of the West. If any reader is interested in the life of these young women, there was a movie made in 1946 about them simply by the name The Harvey Girls, starring Judy Garland, plus there are several books that have been published about these girls’ day-to-day lives working for the Fred Harvey Company.
Unfortunately for Fred Harvey, he never got a chance to see or visit the Grand Canyon. Mr. Harvey passed away on February 9, 1901, in Leavenworth Kansas. To put all rumors aside, Fred Harvey himself was not involved with any plans concerning the construction of the El Tovar Hotel, as he had already passed away. Fred Harvey’s sons, however, were involved with the construction of the El Tovar and bringing in the famous Harvey Girls. I bring this up because there are many myths and legends about Fred Harvey’s supposed spirit haunting the El Tovar “he so loved.” He had never seen the Grand Canyon, nor did he know about the future construction of the El Tovar Hotel upon his passing.
There are alleged stories of Mr. Harvey’s inebriated spirit running around the third floor of the El Tovar during the holiday season telling guests to go downstairs to the Christmas or New Year’s Eve festivities. There has not been any holiday parties held at the El Tovar Hotel for many years at the time of this writing. There is also a beautiful portrait of Fred Harvey hanging on the staircase in the lobby. Someone started a rumor that claimed Mr. Harvey spirit occasionally walks out of this portrait. There are no bases to any of these reports. These are just urban legends people like to tell. Most haunted places do have fabricated stories and the El Tovar is no exception.
The architect commissioned to build this extravagant building was Charles F. Whittlesey of Chicago, Illinois. Whittlesey combined the styles of Swiss mountain chateaus and rustic hunting lodges of the American West in his design of this new upper-class lodging accommodation. Using Oregon Douglas fir and native stones from the canyon, he designed this beautiful and elegant lodge. The El Tovar was originally going to be named “The Bright Angel Tavern,” but during construction it was changed to the El Tovar in honor of the Spanish explorer Don Pedro de Tobar who was part of the famed Coronado Expedition that reported the existence of the Grand Canyon to his fellow explorers. Tobar never actually saw the canyon with his own eyes. One of his men, Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas, saw the canyon and reported it to Tobar.
On January 14, 1905, the highly anticipated El Tovar Hotel finally opened for business. The high-end lodge cost $250,000 to build and it was considered the most elegant and technologically advanced hotel west of the Mississippi River. It was a four-story masterpiece. The lodge offered their overnight guests electric lights powered by its own steam generator, hot and cold running water, and indoor plumbing. Washrooms though were not yet included inside the guest rooms. There were public baths on each of the four floors that patrons could use for a fee.
Yes, even with everything the El Tovar had to offer, guests still had to use shared bathrooms back then. It truly was a simple and unrefined era in history. Give me a private bathroom each time, every time please.
The rooms also included sleigh beds, steamed heat, and telephones. In the Grand Canyon’s Village early years, grocery stores and farms for fresh food and dairy products were not within reach. But the Fred Harvey Company wanted the overnight guests lodging at the El Tovar to have the absolute finest and most luxurious amenities available in the early twentieth century, which included that they serve the very best and freshest in food. The company quickly realized that if they wanted the El Tovar Hotel to be the best hotel west of the Mississippi, they would have to grow their own fruits, vegetables, and herbs in greenhouses as well as raise their own cattle and chickens. In addition, a dairy shop, bakery, and butcher shop were also established. Railroad tank cars brought fresh water for the lodges from Williams, Arizona, daily. The obviously wealthy patrons of the El Tovar had numerous luxuries provided to them that included a barbershop, solarium, roof-top garden, billiards room, separate men’s and women’s sitting rooms, a photography studio, and an arts and music room. These perks were not available to any other guest who stayed in more “rustic” lodging options like the Bright Angel Hotel and tent cabins. The leisure-class guests received all this for the price of $3.50–$4.00 a night (adjusted for inflation, that would be $150 today).
Since 1905, the park service has remodeled the El Tovar Hotel multiple times and now all the overnight rooms have private bathrooms. The El Tovar also boasts a very large and elegant dining room that delights hungry diners with delicious foods, heavenly yet sinful desserts, and fine wines. Two fireplaces keep patrons warm on winter evenings as they enjoy their dining experience. Murals hanging on the walls in the dining room are honoring the four Native American tribes that inhabit the area around the Grand Canyon—Hopi, Apache, Mojave, and Navajo—and authentic sand paintings and pottery fill in all the nook and crannies. A bar/lounge can be accessed through the lobby and has an outside patio facing the canyon’s rim for customers’ viewing pleasure. On the third floor is the Mezzanine Lounge for the guests at the hotel where coffee and tea is served in the early mornings, which also contains a piano and board games. The lobby also contains a small, higher-end gift store with elegant, handmade Native American jewelry.
Fine china was produced exclusively for the Santa Fe Railway and El Tovar Dining Room in the early 1900s. Replicas can still be purchased today inside the gift shop. The original china set was put on display inside the Theodore Roosevelt’s private dining room after a more modern style of dinnerware was introduced in later years. These, however, are now reproductions because a couple of guests helped themselves to a piece of the Grand Canyon’s history. While viewing the authentic china in the Teddy Roosevelt dining room, they were able to take the china off the display stands and purchase them in the gift store. Because the El Tovar gift shop sells the exact replicas of the china , the employees working at the time were completely unaware that it was the real-deal china from the original dining room.
Fun fact about that fine china: while at work, my husband and co-author of this book, BJ, who had just been recently hired for the El Tovar dining room, accidently dropped a large stack of charger plates on the floor. At least a dozen plates were destroyed beyond recognition. The sound of the crashing china was so loud that it caught everyone’s attention in the restaurant, from his fellow employees in the back to the guests having a quiet, elegant meal in the dining room. His manager, who just happened to be standing near him at the time, explained to him how much money he just cost the company. Each plate was quite expensive, having been lightly plated in real 24 karat gold. Needless to say, my husband nearly had a heart attack and narrowly avoided being one of the many entities that never left the Grand Canyon and continue to haunt the park to this day.
The El Tovar is also a favorite place to stay for politicians, celebrities, and musicians visiting the canyon. There is a suite where the presidents of the United States stay called, conveniently, the “Presidential Suite.” This is a breathtaking suite, and regular tourists can at times rent this room. Presidents that have stayed here include Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, George Bush Sr., and Bill Clinton. Celebrities that have stayed at the El Tovar include Albert Einstein, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Rivers, Josh Gates, Val Kilmer (who will only stay in the Santa Fe Suite), and this one musician with a funny story. An overnight guest was in the downstairs lounge reading a newspaper near a crackling fire from one of the magnificent El Tovar fireplaces. On the mezzanine level (one floor above) was a man playing the piano and a group of people singing, laughing, and having the time of their lives. The man that was reading in the sitting lounge was so annoyed at all the noise and the banging on the piano from a “horrible piano player” that he stormed to the front desk to ask them to have the noise silenced. Sending a bellman up the stairs to ask the party to keep it down, the bellman became excited to see none other than singer and songwriter Sir Paul McCartney singing and playing the piano to his entourage. Needless to say, the bellman couldn’t bring himself to tell the party to keep it down. Hey, when a founding member of The Beatles decides to throw an impromptu concert, the show must go on.
When I worked at the canyon, I was always asked by National Lampoon’s Vacation movie fans about where exactly certain parts of the movie were filmed. The scene where Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) goes to the front desk to try to get some cash for a postdated check while inside the “El Tovar Hotel” during the Griswold’s family trip to Wally World was NOT actually filmed at the El Tovar Hotel. That scene was filmed in another hotel in the state of Colorado. It’s sad because the El Tovar is an excellent hotel, but alas, it’s true. Don’t be too depressed, though, because we’re here for all the ghosts and hauntings.
Bar Fight
The El Tovar Hotel, like some other notorious hotels, has had its fair share of deaths and misfortunes within its wooden walls. In the over 110-year history of the lodge, tragic stories have had a way of showing up at the worst possible times, in the form of hauntings.
The El Tovar has an eloquent and upscale cocktail lounge and serves the best prickly pear-based cocktails in the Southwest. Tourists and park employees enjoy the lounge largely because of the intimate, warm, and cozy atmosphere, and it happens to be the only lodge in the park that has an outside patio overlooking the canyon. Alcoholic beverages that have been opened are strictly prohibited outdoors with the exception of this patio. This is a great place to come and have a refreshingly cold drink after a great day of sightseeing or to simply pass time while waiting for your dinner reservation.
On June 8, 1984, Mark, a mule wrangler working for the park, went to the El Tovar lounge with his girlfriend. While in the bar, Mark and his girlfriend got into a heated discussion, and as the argument became louder, a tourist named John thought he should intervene on the woman’s behalf. Unknowingly to the would-be hero, Mark was carrying a. 357 magnum revolver. Mark pulled the gun out and shot and killed his girlfriend’s “knight in shining armor.” Ever since the time of John’s tragic death, employees and guests have reported paranormal experiences inside the lounge. These experiences have been known to occur both during the daytime and at night.
One evening in 2012, after the lounge had closed, a cocktail server was cleaning tables when she saw a tall, black shadow standing in a corner of the lounge. She glanced away quickly and when she looked back it was gone. During another occasion, while a bartender was closing up, he noticed that bar stools were being pulled away from the tables where they were placed at, but he was the only living soul in the room at the time. Terrified, the bartender then ran out of the lounge as fast as he could. Tourists and employees have claimed to have witnessed shadows moving around when no one’s there or have had the feeling of someone pushing on their backs. Women claim they can feel something running its fingers through their hair; patrons say that they have walked into unexplained cold spots; and others witness silverware and drinking glasses moving on their own accord. So whenever you feel that you need a drink, do yourself a favor by stopping by this lounge, getting one of their signature cocktails, and enjoying the mesmerizing view. If one of the views happens to be John’s ghost, don’t be afraid, just offer him a drink and a friendly smile.
Haunted Kitchen and Dining Room
Inside the large El Tovar Kitchen, paranormal experiences torment the employees who work there. Those delicious desserts that end your El Tovar’s dining experience are all handmade really early in the morning when all the guests are still soundly asleep. The dedicated bakers show up around 4:00 a.m. every morning to make that day’s specialty desserts—not just for the El Tovar but for all the other primary dining rooms in the village. Marge is one of those enthusiastic bakers who loves her job. One morning, Marge was in the kitchen preparing to make that day’s signature cinnamon rolls. She dusted the countertop with flour in preparation to knead the dough when she walked away to check on another item she was preparing. When she returned to continue working on the cinnamon rolls, the flour she had just dusted on the counter top contained large hand prints, smeared throughout the flour. A little annoyed, Marge thought someone was having fun with her. She looked around for the prankster but could not find anyone around. On another occasion, Marge was diligently baking when she witnessed the swinging doors leading from the dining room into the kitchen swing open and heard footsteps walk in, and once again, there was absolutely no one around. Marge hasn’t been the only baker in the kitchen to have experienced strange happenings. For many years, the other members of the morning kitchen staff have claimed to have had similar experiences. One super early morning, the baking staff had to be to work at 2 a.m. due to a special event happening at the park that day. Marcia, another baker, arrived in the kitchen before anyone else did, so she decided she would start her preparation work for the busy morning ahead. When Marcia walked into the kitchen, she turned the lights on and was surprised to see an older lady standing in the middle of the kitchen looking at her. Marcia said that the lady was wearing 1920s era clothing and looked as solid as you and me, but then this lady slowly faded away.
One evening after the El Tovar dining room closed, a couple of crew members were cleaning the dining area known as the Canyon Room. Inside this room there are double doors that lead into the kitchen. As the exhausted employees were finishing up with this room, they both witnessed the double doors open and a white ball of light silently float out of the kitchen area. The two startled workers watched in amazement as this illuminating ball, which seemed to have some kind of intelligence to it, drift slowly through a closed north window and out towards the canyon’s chasm, until it disappeared from view.
Low-Level Spooks
The terrace level rooms at the El Tovar are small, quaint rooms, are the cheapest to rent in this lodge, and are situated on the lowest level. Quite a few of these rooms have been known to have paranormal experiences. Lights turn on and off and alarm clocks will buzz even when they are unplugged. A dark shadow has been seen in some of these rooms. A few guests have left in the middle of the night out of sheer terror after looking into mirrors in their rooms and seeing an evil demonic face looking back at them. There is also a frequent gentleman guest that always stays on the terrace level when he visits the park. He says that every time he stays a female ghost visits him in the room he occupies. He claims she is beautiful, has red hair, and when he sees her, they always have a conversation until she fades away.
High-Class Ghosts
The Mezzanine Lounge is where the piano is on the third floor. One early morning, a male guest woke up earlier than the rest of his family. Not wanting to disturb his sleeping companions, he got dressed and walked to the Mezzanine Lounge for some coffee. This gentleman was the only person walking around the floor at this time in the morning. After pouring himself some coffee, the early riser settled into a chair near the piano. As he sat sipping his coffee and enjoying the solitude, music from the piano began to play mysteriously and suddenly with no explanation. It stopped as quickly as it started. Baffled why the piano began to play seemingly on its own, the male guest got up to look at the piano to see if it was possibly a player piano. He was shocked to see that it wasn’t and also discovered that the cover for the keys was closed. A little frazzled, the man decided it was time to go back to his room.
The fourth floor, which is the top level, houses the extravagant (and expensive) suites. These chambers are uniquely furnished specifically for the titles they have been given: Elizabeth Colter, Fred Harvey, El Tovar, and the Presidential. The Presidential Suite is normally not available for overnight guests to stay in. If you want to know if there is any paranormal activity associated with any of these rooms, the answer is a definite yes. The El Tovar and Fred Harvey Suites have been reported to contain paranormal activity inside them: lights turning off and on, moving cold spots, unexplained footsteps, the sound of children laughing when no children are present, and bedding being ripped off the beds while guests are sleeping. Also on the fourth floor, housekeepers have witnessed a female spirit that glides around the hallways and stands near a large pane window, looking out towards the canyon as if waiting for her love to return. Several housekeepers have refused to work on the fourth floor due to this female spirit.
It is said that when this female spirit was alive, she was a Harvey Girl who worked as a maid at the El Tovar. During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corp to help financially struggling families have an income. On May 29, 1933, the first round of workers arrived at the Grand Canyon. One of their jobs was to reinforce the retaining wall between the El Tovar Hotel and Bright Angel Lodge. Sometime after they arrived, one of the young men met and fell in love with a Harvey Girl. This girl also fell in love with him, but when she became employed, she had to signed an agreement that said she would not become romantically involved with anyone and would remain at her assigned position until her contract expired. When her suitor’s job ended at the canyon, he asked her to run away with him, and she heartbreakingly told him that she was bound to her contract and couldn’t leave. Distraught, the young man carved a heart into the retaining wall so the young Harvey Girl would always remember his love for her. The “Heart of the Canyon” still exists to this day and it is believed that this female spirit goes to this one particular window on the fourth floor to gaze out at the stone wall so she can see the heart of the man she loved staring back at her.
Another room that has received a number of complaints about strange activity from guests and employees is room 6415. The main allegations reported from this room seems to be with the lights. They like to turn themselves off and on. A porter claimed that he was sent to this room for a housekeeping check. When he walked into the room, he turned on the lights from the switch next to the door. As he proceeded, he distinctly heard a click and the lights went out. He turned around and walked back to the light switch where someone or something had flipped the switch to the off position. He turned it on and went back to the middle of the room when again the lights went out. Heading towards the light switch, again the porter saw that the switch had been physically manipulate back to the off position and decided this time there was no way in hell he was going to hang around inside a room that he clearly wasn’t welcome inside.
Do Not Speak of the Dead
The gift store in the lobby has a little bit of something for everyone. Here you can purchase wine glasses and beer steins with the El Tovar logo, as well as the charger plates used currently in the dining room, which also features a detailed logo of the lodge. Native American sand paintings are a perfect souvenir to hang on your wall at home as one of your great memories of the rich Native American culture at the canyon. But wouldn’t a true ghost story be even better, one that you actually witnessed? That’s exactly what happened to one visitor in the gift store. Jenna walked into the El Tovar gift store not really knowing what kind of souvenir to purchase. After the clerk was finished helping a different customer, Jenna walked up to the register and started a conversation with the clerk. After talking about her day of sightseeing at the Grand Canyon, Jenna asked the cashier if she knew if the El Tovar was haunted. The employee started telling Jenna of different hauntings that he had heard about. They started discussing about whether ghosts and haunting really exist when a dream box, displayed across from the register, levitated and was hurled at the clerk. Jenna witnessed the beautiful relic levitate seemingly on its own accord and get launched at the clerk. She decided against buying a souvenir and ran out of the gift store.
Across from the front desk is a staircase that leads downstairs to snack machines, a water fountain, and public washrooms. The woman’s restroom has been known to creep the bejeezus out of anyone who uses it. There have been reports that the lights will turn off and on and the sink faucets will all turn on at the exact same time. One woman even claimed that while she was using a stall in the restroom, all the other stall doors began to continuously slam and the lights turned off. This guest vehemently insisted she was the only one using the restroom.
The Truth Is Out There
On top of a hill towards the southern edge of the El Tovar is a long, winding staircase that connects tourists with the park’s free shuttle bus stop and the historic, all-wooden Grand Canyon Depot at the bottom. As visitors hike up and down this staircase, metal handrails assist those in need to complete this tougher-than-it-looks trek. If you walk out the front doors of the lobby and onto the porch, then walk down the steps of the El Tovar towards the overnight guest luggage drop off, look over to your right; this is where you can see the beginning of the staircase. There is a legend that on certain evenings, a dark, full-bodied apparition climbs up this staircase and will either walk towards the Hopi House, go behind it, and disappear, or the apparition will walk towards the El Tovar, climb the steps up till it reaches the front doors, then fade away. No one has ever been able to confront or approach this supposed spirit. I wasn’t even going to put this particular story into the book due to finding absolutely no firsthand witnesses. It seems to be one of those “I know someone, who knows someone, who claims his uncles wife’s fifth cousin, twice removed, said they saw a black shadow walking around.”
If there is any truth to any of this story (don’t hold your breath), this apparition might be a criminal who was shot and killed in front of the El Tovar. On July 15, 1951, three men entered the El Tovar, robbed the front desk of twelve thousand dollars, and as they tried to flee, one of the robbers was shot and killed by a park ranger in front of the El Tovar. I staked this area out for over a year to get a glimpse of this dark-cloaked wanderer with no luck. I also ran into many people waiting ever so patiently with cameras to take pictures upon its arrival from the staircase, and people wearing running shoes that thought they would physically run and apprehend it. Please don’t waste all of your precious vacation time trying to catch this alleged spirit. You will have a better chance of witnessing the Loch Ness Monster playing Marco Polo with Bigfoot in the Colorado River while a UFO flies across the canyon with a banner that says “nothing to see here, people of Earth.”
The El Tovar Hotel is a must-see if you visit the park. There are rocking chairs and swings on the patios, so you can sit and look at the canyon or watch all the people walk by (believe me, some of these tourists can be quite entertaining). Stroll into the lobby and sit by the warm fireplaces and enjoy the ambiance. Drop by the dining room and if you don’t have time for a meal, just order one of their specialty desserts. These sweet treats are well worth the extra calories. Just make sure you keep a watchful eye out for any eternal guest that may float by.