& Historical District
Zion National Park, Utah
The Zion Lodge Historical District:
Here we are in beautiful Zion National Park! Among the natural beauty of soaring red cliffs there are 61 registered
historic structures remaining in the park. If you like old buildings, bridges,
walls, trails, etc., there are plenty to see here at Zion! For this
tour, we're going to focus on the concession buildings associated with
the Zion Lodge complex. These buildings were all built by the Union
Pacific Railroad to promote use of the railroad by tourists. Visitors
rode the train to Cedar City, Utah. From there touring cars or buses
took them to the Zion Lodge.
Unless noted, all photos above were taken on approximately April 16-18, 2007. Some photos have been digitally altered to hide the identities of people in the photos.
Gilbert Stanley Underwood:
Most of the historic buildings featured in this article were
designed by the famous architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood, and represent some
of his earliest work. Mr. Underwood is considered a master at taking
the rustic architectural style used by the park service and translating
it for use on the larger, more complex hotel buildings found in many of
the National Parks. If you compare these buildings at Zion to his later
work at Bryce Canyon and The Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, you can see the progression of his skills as
he refined them over the years. (He also had bigger budgets to work
with on some of the later work, which allowed the use of more
architectural detail!)
The Original Zion Lodge:
Underwood's first design for the Lodge was a typical
large hotel building. The Union
Pacific Railroad wanted a large upscale hotel suited
to the wealthy tourists they desired would ride their trains to the park. The Park service had the
right to review and approve the building designs, since the facility
was going to be inside Zion National Park. However, Stephen Mather, the Park
Service Director, rejected this first design. Mr. Mather pushed
Underwood to create something simpler, more in harmony with the site.
He wanted to see something smaller, and more like the rustic
architecture already used on the Park Service owned buildings that existed within the
Park.
A new plan was developed by Underwood, consisting of a
compromise. A central lodge building would contain the guest lobby,
rest rooms, a store, and a restaurant. Two groups of cabins provided
for guest accommodations, a group of basic cabins without baths, and
another group of upscale cabins with baths. A pool and pool house (now
removed), bakery, barbershop, employee dorms, and a few miscellaneous
buildings completed the Lodge Complex design. A separate support
complex a short distance away at Birch Creek would house vehicles and
horses.
The proposed architecture for the buildings was a cross
between the rustic park service buildings, with lots of sandstone
masonry, and the clean lines of the wood frame hotel desired by the
railroad. The building designs were standard wood-frame construction,
but to make them feel more rustic (and save lots of money!) they would
not have exterior siding. The wood frame studs would be open and
exposed on the outside, rather than on the inside like most inexpensive tourist cabins of the time. (See our photos of the cabins at Grant Grove Village in King's Canyon N.P. for an example of typical cabins of the era.) To add to the rustic look they would also have sandstone
foundations, chimneys and columns. This new plan was approved by the
Park Service, and the Zion Lodge and Birch Creek complexes were built
and operated by a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad under the
name Utah Parks Company (to make it look less like a railroad monopoly!)
The New Zion Lodge:
This is the new lodge building that stands today.
The new lodge was hastily constructed in 1966 after the old lodge burned.
Built at the same location as the original, it was a very plain box
building, hastily erected in an effort to get the lodge back open as
quickly as possible. Ugly was one of the kinder descriptions given to
this replacement building. Fortunately renovations over the years have added much of the
original lodge's exterior features to the "new" lodge building. The pitch of
the roof on the new building is not as steep, but other than that the
overall look is now very similar to the original lodge building. Notice
how the sandstone rock on the building matches the canyon walls above
the lodge.
The Historic Deluxe Western Cabins:
The Western Cabins are historic and were
formerly called the Deluxe Cabins. There are two basic cabin layouts, duplex and fourplex.
The duplex cabins were built in 1927; the fourplex cabins were added in
1929. All of the historic cabins were designed by the famous architect
Gilbert Stanley Underwood. Like the other Zion buildings designed by
Underwood, they have open walls with exposed exterior framing. The
cabins have been updated and, to some degree, restored. They had
been modernized at one time leaving little of the original interior
appearance. Those "improvements" have since been removed and the interiors
now are much more like the original design.
The cabins have 2 double beds each. Baths have been
updated. The original walk-in closets have been converted into dressing
rooms with a second sink, which is very convenient. The furniture in
the cabins is rustic and fits in well with the cabin style. Each cabin
has a porch with a nice wood bench. The cabins have been remodeled since these photos were taken in 2007, they now have new paint colors, new furniture, and new fabrics.
Pioneer Family Cabins:
Originally there were a group of standard, or family, cabins. These
cabins were smaller and did not have private baths. All of these
standard cabins were removed in 1984. The Lodge complex also originally
had a swimming pool and bathhouses designed by Underwood. Both have
been removed.
Hotel/Motel Units:
The historic cabins are not the only lodging units at Zion Lodge. There
are also two modern hotel buildings. The
architecture of these buildings blends well with the historic cabins.
The rooms are what you would expect in a typical two-star rated
establishment. Most rooms have two queen beds, a few rooms have a king
bed. We'll take a quick look at the hotel units, then get back to the
historic buildings. The hotel/motel units have been remodeled after
these photos were taken, they now have new paint colors, new furniture,
and new fabrics.
Other Historic Buildings adjacent to The Zion Lodge:
The side of the women's dorm building. Note the sandstone rock-work on the foundation and chimney.
Birch Creek Support Facilities
When the Zion Lodge was built, support facilities that might be noisy or
smelly were located a short distance down the canyon from the Lodge
Complex at Birch Creek. This included the vehicle maintenance and
storage areas, as well as the horse stables. Birch Creek is located 1.1 miles south of The Zion Lodge adjacent to the Court of the Patriarchs viewpoint.
There are many other historic buildings in Zion N.P. including a number of historic ranger residence buildings, restroom buildings, bridges, canals, amphitheater, trails, etc. I have photos I took of most of them but didn't want to overwhelm you with my excess! I've already gone beyond my normal limit of 25 photos. Wikipedia has a good list of them: Historical buildings and structures of Zion National Park.
All photos and text by JessStryker, 2007, text updated 2018.
