Bright Angel Peninsula Historic District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Grand Canyon National Park

Regions 6, 7, & 8 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

Inventory Unit Description: The Bright Angel Peninsula Historic District, which covers approximately 330 acres, is located on the Bright Angel Peninsula, which is a long, tapering finger of land jutting southward from the southern edge of the Kaibab Plateau into the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, situated between the Transept and Roaring Springs Canyons. The site’s topography slopes gently from a level ridge along the rim of Roaring Springs Canyon down to the west, forming ravines where drainage flows to the west. The district is bound to the west and east by the edges of the peninsula, to the north by CC Hill and the Kaibab Plateau, and to the south by the edge of the Grand Canyon Lodge Historic District. The district has been divided into seven separate sub-areas: the Bright Angel Peninsula Entrance Road Corridor Sub-Area; NPS Headquarters, Housing, and Maintenance Sub-Area; Campground Sub-Area; Concessionaire Sub-Area; Transept Trail Corridor Sub-Area; Wastewater Treatment Sub-Area; and Water Tank Sub-Area. Between 1917 and 1942, the Bright Angel Peninsula became the centerpiece of development on the North Rim, offering tourist accommodations and NPS maintenance and staff facilities. By 1919, the year that the Grand Canyon was designated a national park, the NPS, political and business representatives from Utah, and the Union Pacific Railroad were firmly committed to developing the North Rim as a national tourist destination. Over the coming decades, the NPS heightened efforts to bring in tourists by improving accessibility to the North Rim and offering better amenities. In 1933, development on the North Rim was further stimulated by the arrival of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crews who built roads, native stone walls and stairs, a tennis court, trails, buildings, cleared invasive vegetation, planted wildflowers, laid water and electrical lines, and performed a myriad of other tasks. Through the use of the NPS Rustic style, CCC crews helped establish the character that continues to define the Bright Angel Peninsula today. During the Mission 66-era, significant plans were made for the North Rim but only minor construction took place, mostly within the campground. The Bright Angel Peninsula Historic District is significant under Criteria A and C for its association with national park planning movements between 1917 and 1942, and for its association as a masterwork of the Civilian Conservation Corps and National Park Service landscape architects. Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the peninsula and its associated features retain significance as tangible products and symbols of the work relief programs of the New Deal era. The beginning of the period of significance, 1917, marks the year that William W. Wylie, a well-known concessionaire in Yellowstone National Park, established a tourist camp above the head of the of Transept Canyon near Bright Angel Point. The end date of the period of significance, 1942, marks the departure of the CCC crews from the North Rim.

Bright Angel Peninsula Historic District: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Grand Canyon National Park

Series