Visiting the Grand Canyon: Early Views of Tourism

Images of America: Arizona

by Linda L. Stampoulos

The Colorado River began carving a course to create the Grand Canyon some four to six million years ago, but organized tourism to the natural wonder is fairly young, geologically speaking. Getting to the view along and below the rim has not always been as convenient as packing up the family car and hitting the road. The El Tovar Hotel, celebrating its centennial in 2005, had just opened to lodgers when the Canyon was declared a National Monument in 1908. Between the 1890s and the 1920s, horses, mules, river rafts, stagecoaches, and later railroads and automobiles permitted increasing access to the area. Recreation areas, businesses catering to tourists, and federal preservation programs would eventually mark the Grand Canyon as the ultimate American travel destination.

Genres: Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published July 26, 2004

Reviews

[Karel Baloun · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little rushed and suboptimally organized, but seems accurate and is quite interesting. The impressive photos demonstrate just how much tourist life has changed in just around one century.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good collection of photos, showing how tourism developed at the Grand Canyon. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded just how difficult it would have been to do this 100-150 years ago.

[Patty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the photographic history. I agree, some of the captions are awkward.

[Libscigrl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Terrible writing, if that can be said when all you are doing is putting descriptive text next to a photo. Grammatical and punctuation errors. Only the first 1/3 of the book is about early tourism...the rest is just images of the Grand Canyon and Hopi life. Opinions and references to God included in some of the captions. While older images are understandably in black and white, the more recent ones are pointless...especially if they are just of the canyon. You just can't grasp the beauty, no matter how many descriptive words you use. I learned almost nothing reading this. Also confused as to why so many images came from Colorado and not Arizona.