Grant Grove Village - Page 2

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Photos taken November 2008 unless noted.

The Grant Grove Village Area:

MAP KEY:
1. Cabin #9, the Honeymoon Cabin
2. Redwood Duplex Cottages
3. Camp Cabins
4. Tent Cabins
5. Lodge Area Bathhouse
6. Meadow Camp Rustic Cabins
7. Old Meadow Camp Office & Bathhouse (sadly it was recently demolished)
8. New Meadow Camp Bathhouse
9. Wormwood Employee Cabins
10. Gas Station (closed)
11. Gamlin Cabin (off the map)
12. John Muir Lodge
13. Restaurant, Gift Shop, guest Registration Desk
14. Grant Grove Visitor Center
15. General Store & Post Office
16. Location of former Lodge (burned down)

Grant Grove Village consists of several separate areas. The primary 3 areas utilized by lodging guests are arranged around Bradley Meadow.

• The Plaza is the area on the west side of the meadow, fronting on the main park road (state highway 180), where the Restaurant, Gift Shop, General Store, Post Office, and Visitor Center are located. 
• The Lodge Area, also called Tent City, is an area of cabins located on a hillside on the east side of the meadow. It was called the Lodge because the lodge building was here- until it burned down in 1993. 
• Meadow Camp is on the north side of the meadow and consists of housekeeping-style guest cabins. 

 In addition to these areas there is a concession employee housing area known as "Wormwood", a seasonal park service employee area called "Pine Camp" (not shown on this map), and the Residential Area for the National Park Service employees. There are also 3 campgrounds; Crystal Springs, Azalea, and Sunset (Sunset is south of the Village, not shown on this map.) Finally there is a Coral and Stables, and the Columbine Picnic Area (which is a former campground.) About 1 mile away to the west is the actual "Grant Grove" which is a famous group of Giant Sequoia trees. The Grant Grove Village was intentionally not built within a historic Sequoia grove to protect the trees from damage. All of the Giant Sequoias you see in the area around the Village were planted there, mostly in the 1930's. Some of these planted trees are now very large, demonstrating how fast they grow!

Grant Grove Village is located in the Grant Grove section of King's Canyon National Park in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. Grant Grove was originally a separate park, established Oct 1, 1890 as "General Grant National Park" . When King's Canyon National Park was created in 1940, the Grant Grove Park was annexed into it.

HELP! If you have memories or old photos of the facilities at Grant Grove I would love to see them, and will pass on anything relevant to the Park Service historian. Because much of the written history here has been lost, anything you have might be of great help! To contact me (Jess Stryker) click on the Contact Link at the top of this page.

The Historic Cabins:

(There are additional photos of all of the cabins/cottages on the last page of this article.)

Honeymoon Cabin, Photo October 2017

 The Honeymoon Cabin.  The oldest structure at Grant Grove Village is the bark-covered cabin #9, also known as the Honeymoon Cabin, also sometimes called the Log Cabin. Built in 1910, this cabin was originally located at Hume Lake, about 5 miles northwest of it's current location, where it served as a stage stop. The cabin was relocated to the Lodge Area ("Tent City") of Grant Grove Village where it served for many years as the reading room. At some time it was converted to a guest room.

The honeymoon cabin is considered by many to be the best room at Grant Grove. While often called the "log cabin", it is actually a frame building faced with milled log slabs with the bark left on the logs on the exterior side, which gives it a very rustic appearance. It features a queen bed, queen sofa bed, private bath, coffee maker, carpeting, and small refrigerator (for your honeymoon champagne.) It is heated and open year-round. This cabin is often booked months in advance, so plan ahead if you want to stay in it. You must call the reservations phone line to book it, as of the time I am writing this it is not available through the online reservation system.

 Redwood Duplex Cabin, Photo October 2017

Redwood Duplex Cabins.  There are four historic redwood duplex cabins/cottages in the Lodge/Tent City Area at Grant Grove. These were build in 1927 by the Sequoia and General Grant National Parks Company. They were designed by the famous architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood (1890-1960).

The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks Company was run by Howard Hays, who had formerly run the concessions at Yellowstone N.P.. He later had a dispute with the National Park Service with one result being that he burned all the company records concerning Grant Grove. For that reason, historical records concerning the concession facilities are minimal.

This is the back side of one of the duplex cabins. You can see the rear bump-outs with small square windows of the bathrooms. Although they look like they may have been added on later, I believe the bathrooms are original. As would be expected with a historic room, the cabins are small. Each guest room of the duplex cabins has a private bath, 2 double beds, coffee maker, carpeting, and a recently remodeled private bath. The cabins are heated and open year-round. That's my wife Julie tying her boots on the porch.

If you stayed in one of the cottages in the 80's or 90's you were probably not impressed, they were in very bad shape. The floors had settled to the point that a wheeled suitcase would roll across the room when you set it down! Good news, the redwood duplex cottages have been fixed up, the floors have been leveled, and they have all new bathroom fixtures.

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