Through the Desert View Watchtower

About this photograph

A single misplaced stone was enough for architect Mary Colter to demand that two full freshly laid layers, a day's work, of her Grand Canyon Watchtower be torn down and rebuilt.

Colter had a vision worth defending. At the edge of one of the world’s most astonishing landscapes, she wanted to create a building that seemed to belong among the ancient cliffs. Inspired by Ancestral Puebloan architecture, she worked toward that vision stone by stone, determined that the finished Watchtower would honor its surroundings.

Her first setback came during construction. Returning after a day away, she found stonework that fell short of her expectations. Accepting it would have been easier, but her uncompromising attention to detail would not allow it. The workers dismantled the newly laid layers and rebuilt them. When the Watchtower opened in 1932, her persistence had become something visitors could step inside.

In the viewing room, travelers could rest while their eyes wandered across the immense landscape. Through this window stands Cedar Mountain, itself a survivor. Its resistant stone cap has sheltered the softer layers beneath while erosion carried away much of the surrounding terrain, leaving its broad, flat summit above the desert.

Years later, Colter’s vision suffered a second setback as the room became retail space. The place she had designed for lingering over a view had taken on another purpose. In 2015, others carried her vision forward, returning it to an open viewing area.

This photograph captures the reward of that persistence: the shelter of stone and timber, the enduring shape of Cedar Mountain, and a window that still invites us to stop and wonder.