The National Park Service # * * * 131 



still prevails in some of the parks, notably Zion and Bryce Canyon 

 National parks and the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, where the 

 Union Pacific has financed improvements valued at two million dollars, 

 and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, where the Santa Fe Railroad 

 and Fred Harvey have constructed facilities at the cost of several mil 

 lion dollars. Also in Glacier Park the Great Northern built a magnificent 

 chain of hotels and chalets. In Yellowstone, the hotels were built 

 originally by the Northern Pacific Railroad. Later they were taken over 

 by another company, which operates both the chain of hotels and the 

 extensive motor transportation system. In Mount Rainier National Park 

 the hotel was originally financed by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 

 Railroad, and later was taken over by a group of citizens of Seattle and 

 Tacoma, interested in developing travel to the Northwest. Public- 

 spirited citizens of Portland financed the establishment of facilities in 

 Crater Lake Park. 



In Yosemite the history of the operators in the park has been a 

 varied and an interesting one. The first inns in the valley were little 

 more than bars, and greater emphasis was laid on this phase of hospi 

 tality than on comforts. Californians were quick to appreciate the busi 

 ness possibilities of travel, even in the early days, and within three years 

 after the first party of tourists, led by J. M. Hutchings, visited Yosemite 

 Valley in 1855 two inns had been built in the wilderness. The first of 

 these was a saloon, built in the fall of 1856, to accommodate those early 

 travelers who demanded their whisky and their game of cards even in 

 the shadow of El Capitan. The next year it became apparent that visitors 

 wanted to eat as well as to drink in Yosemite, and the restaurant feature 

 was added as an afterthought. This building later became Black's 

 Hotel, famed mainly as the home of John Muir after his rupture with 

 Hutchings. 



The second of these inns was a blue canvas structure erected by a 

 man named Beardsley and later torn down to make way for a wooden 

 structure which Hutchings bought. For years Hutchings' House was 

 one of the landmarks of Yosemite and one of California's famous hos- 

 telries. It achieved its personality more through the geniality of its 

 host than because of its comforts, which were notoriously lacking. For 

 some time Hutchings' House consisted of two rooms, one upstairs, one 

 down. The women were herded upstairs to sleep. The men stayed down. 

 Visiting notables, often nobles from abroad, slept side by side with 

 nobodies from anywhere. Later, Hutchings improvised rooms of paper 

 walls, with curtains for doors, and gentlemen were allowed to sleep 

 with their wives in Hutchings' House, though even whispers were heard 

 all through the house and the shadows made lively pantomimes on the 



