Quintin and Ruth Blair Residence, Cody, Wyoming (1952) (S.351)

Yellowstone Canyon Hotel   The Blairs collected prairie styled art glass light fixtures and dining room chairs from the demolished Yellowstone Canyon Hotel. One of the double stained glass light fixtures is mounted on a stone pedestal in the front yard and the second is on a pedestal in the Garden Court. A smaller set of single stained glass wall mounted light fixtures are mounted on either side of the entrance to the Blair’s Holiday Inn in Cody Wyoming. The Wright designed dining room chairs were replaced with prairie styled chairs they acquired from the Yellowstone Canyon Hotel.     FIRST CANYON HOTEL   FRANK J. HAYNES   ROBERT REAMER    ARTICLES    BOOKS    PHOTOGRAPHS    POSTCARDS      FIRST CANYON HOTEL The first Yellowstone Canyon Hotel was built in 1890. In 1910 it was incorporated into the second Canyon Hotel which was designed by Architect Robert Reamer.   "Grand Canyon Hotel - Yellowstone Park. Haynes-Photo. Made in Germany." Postcard of first Canyon Hotel, photographed by Frank J Haynes, circa 1891.   Guests arriving by stagecoach at the Grand Canyon Hotel.     FRANK J. HAYNES Frank J. (Jay) Haynes was born Oct. 28, 1853 in Saline Michigan and married Lily Verna Synder in 1878. He was known as the official photographer of the Northern Pacific Railroad and Yellowstone National Park. He was employed by the Northern Pacific RR in 1875 to take pictures along their route from Minnesota to the West Coast for advertising and promotional purposes. Haynes established a photo studio in Moorhead, Minnesota in 1876 and moved it to Fargo, North Dakota in 1879. Ten years later he moved the studio to St. Paul, Minnesota where it was maintained for many years. In 1884 he obtained leases at both Old Faithful and Mammoth, where he opened his first photo shop in 1884. The Haynes Guidebook was first published in 1890 and continued until 1966. In 1900 he produced his first set of ‘picture post cards’, and went on to produce thousands of post cards. In 1911-12 he photographed the Yellowstone Canyon Hotel, and his images where published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park". Many of these historic images were also published as postcards. He passed away on March 10, 1921 at age 68.     ROBERT REAMER Robert C. Reamer (1873-1938) was an American architect, most noted for the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. Reamer was born in and spent his early life in Oberlin, Ohio. He left home at the age of thirteen and went to work in an architect's office in Detroit as a draftsman. By the age of twenty-one, Reamer had moved to San Diego and had opened the architectural office of Zimmer & Reamer in partnership with Samuel B. Zimmer. The firm produced a wide variety of projects, but the only surviving example of Zimmer & Reamer's work is the George H. Hill Block in the Gaslamp District. The partnership dissolved in 1898, but Reamer continued to work on his own, including work at the Hotel del Coronado. During this period he became acquainted with the president of the Yellowstone Park Association, Harry W. Child.       In 1910 Reamer presented designs for a new hotel to be located at Canyon Village, adjacent to the Falls of the Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, to be known as the Canyon Hotel. This hotel incorporated portions of a previous hotel, built in 1891, and was 750 feet long with 400 rooms and 100 baths. Occupying a prominent site on a hillside, it was built in the winter of 1910-1911. The design bore a close resemblance to Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style work, with a strong horizontal emphasis and a commanding roof line.       By 1918, Reamer had remarried and relocated to Seattle. In 1935, Reamer began to experience health problems that led to the amputation of a leg in 1937. He died in Seattle of a heart attack on January 7, 1938. (Wikipedia)       The centerpiece of the Canyon Hotel was its lounge which had elements of Prairie Styled architecture.       Close to midnight on August 17, 1959 a 7.5 magnatude earthquake struck Yellowstone National Park centered at Hebgen Lake. Over the next few hours four aftershocks shook the Yellowstone area, with magnitudes ranging from 5.8 to 6.5. Damage to the Old Faithful Lodge was minimal. But the Canyon Hotel did not fair as well. It suffered extensive damage and the conclusion was reached that repairs would be to costly. The Canyon Hotel was ordered razed and demolition began. But late on August 8,1960 before it could be completely demolished it caught fire and burned. Extant of Robert Reamer’s other work: - Hall's Mercantile, Gardiner, Montana, now the headquarters of the Yellowstone Association, 1903. - Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park, 1904, additions 1913-1914. - Lake Yellowstone Hotel, Yellowstone National Park, expansion, 1904, additions 1923, 1928, 1936. - Masonic Home, Helena, Montana, 1906. - H.W. Child House (Executive House), Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, 1908. - Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel addition, Yellowstone National Park, 1913. - Union Station, Clinton, Massachusetts, 1914. - Lake Quinault Lodge, Quinault, Washington, 1926. - Skinner Building, Fifth Avenue Theater, Seattle, Washington, 1926. - Mount Baker Theater, Bellingham, Washington, 1927. - 1411 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, Washington, 1928. - Edmond Meany Hotel, Seattle, Washington, 1931. - Fox Theater, Spokane, Washington, 1931. - Fox Theater (later Alberta Bair Theater), Billings, Montana, 1931. Demolished work: - Northern Pacific Railroad Depot, Gardiner, Montana, 1903, demolished 1954. - Transportation Building, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone National Park, 1903, burned 1925. - Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone National Park, 1910, addition 1930, demolished 1962. - Maine Central Railroad Depot, Augusta, Maine, 1913, demolished 1961. Unbuilt designs: - Mount Washington Summit Hotel, Mount Washington, New Hampshire, designed 1912.

ARTICLES   YELLOWSTONE PARK'S NEW HOTEL OPENS WITH BALL Published in The Anaconda Standard, Aug. 4, 1911 Aug. 3 - The formal opening of the New Grand Canyon hotel in Yellowstone park, which marks the opening of this $700,000 structure, was celebrated last night by a ball, in which the guests of the hotel, campers in the park, fisherman, hotel employees and everybody else within a radius of 50 miles joined in.       The hotel is unique among all the resort hotels in the world and the mammoth lounging room is the most striking feature. This room, 185 feet by 95 feet in dimension, is finished in natural birch and furnished with large upholstered and willow pieces of original patterns, designed by Mrs. H. W. Child.       The hotel, which has been under construction for more than a year, was opened, except for the lounging room, when the park season began, June 15. It was built under incredible difficulties and every pound of material within this great structure, which stretches along the mountainside for 700 feet and is full five stories in height, was brought in by freight wagon and sleds from Gardner, 40 miles away, and for several months, through snowdrifts 10 to 12 feet in depth, with the thermometer far below zero for weeks at a time. The hotel has 450 rooms and 75 bathrooms.       Robert C. Reamer, the architect, spent a year studying the great resort hotels in Europe and this country before making the plans, but found nothing suitable for the canyon, and built the new hotel after ideas of his own. Mr. Reamer was architect for the Old Faithful Inn and the Lake Colonial hotel in the park. The hotel sits on the side of the mountain, in absolute harmony with the natural scenery, within half a mile of the canyon of the Yellowstone.

BOOKS "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" Circa 1911 By Raftery, John Hentry; Photographs by Frank. J. Haynes   "...The two regiments of men who spent the winter of 1910-11 building this marvelous mountain hotel have been practically isolated from the world for months. They have worked always seven days of the week ; they had no saloon or club or theater to beguile their time or bemuse their faculties, and even for the younger, pleasure-loving workers there was no diversion, except the fierce thrill of gliding and coasting on skis over the glacier-like slopes of the desolate amphitheatre which surrounded them. There is probably no other like example of hotel-building in history, and the structure which is the result, the scene which it civilizes without desecrating, the strange region which it adorns without vulgarizing are all in keeping and in singular symmetry.  ...Rustic it is not, in the sense that Old Faithful Inn is rustic. Architect Robert C. Reamer, who also contrived and constructed the historic Old Faithful Inn, smiled gravely when I commented upon this impressive feature of his latest and greatest work, saying: "I built it in keeping with the place where it stands. Nobody could improve upon that. To be at discord with the landscape, would be almost a crime. To try to improve upon it, would be an impertinence."   "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park"  Circa 1911.  Published by the Yellowstone Park Hotel Company. Written by John Hentry Raftery, Photographs by Frank J. Haynes.   Yellowstone Park Hotel, circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on the inside front cover.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   The Lounge from the Lobby Steps, circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 9.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   Detail of the The Lounge image detailing the hanging and wall mounted light fixtures the Blairs purchased. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 9.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   The Lounge looking toward the Lobby, circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 10.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   Detail of the The Lounge image detailing the hanging and wall mounted light fixtures the Blairs purchased. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 10.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   The Lobby, circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 12.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   The Dining Room, circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 14.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   Detail of the The Dining Room image detailing the dining room chairs the Blairs purchased. Circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 14.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.

PHOTOGRAPHS Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone National Park. Courtesy of the National Park Service. J.P. Clum lantern slide. Circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on the inside front cover.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone National Park. Courtesy of the National Park Service. Circa 1917. Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   Guests arriving by stagecoach at the Yellowstone Canyon Hotel. Courtesy of the National Park Service.   The Canyon Hotel, stairway and musicians' stage at end of main lounge.   Canyon Hotel Lounge, Yellowstone National Park #37776. Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone National Park, circa 1917. Courtesy of the National Park Service.   Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone National Park, circa 1917. Courtesy of the National Park Service.   Demolition of the Canyon Hotel. Close to midnight on August 17, 1959 a 7.5 magnatude earthquake struck Yellowstone National Park centered at Hebgen Lake. Over the next few hours four aftershocks shook the Yellowstone area. Damage to the Canyon Hotel was severe. It suffered extensive damage and the conclusion was reached that repairs would be to costly. Possibly photographed by Michael Turner, Haynes Photo Shop. Courtesy of the National Park Service.   Destruction of the Canyon Hotel. Late on August 8,1960 before it could be completely demolished it caught fire and burned. Possibly photographed by Michael Turner, Haynes Photo Shop. Courtesy of the National Park Service.

POSTCARDS   "71062  Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone Park. Copyright A. Schlechten". Stagecoaches in front of the Yellowstone Canyon Hotel, circa 1914.   "No 144. Grand Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone Park. Haynes Photo".   Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone National Park, By Asahel Curtis,, Circa 1928.   "4303. Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone Park."   "10173. Grand Canyon Hotel Lounge from Office, Yellowstone Park. Haynes Photo." Circa 1911. Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 9.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   "Y. P. 68. Lobby, Canyon Hotel, Yellowstone Park. Copyright N. P. R. R. Co."   "Canyon Hotel Lounge, Yellowstone National Park (c) 37776. Copyright by Haynes Inc., Yellowstone Park, Wyoming. OB-H369." Back: "Canyon Hotel Lounge, one of the show places of the park, is the front wing of the hotel situated on the north side of the Grand Canyon. Copyright by Haynes Inc., Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, U.S.A. Genuine Curteich-Chicago "C.T. Art-Colortone" Post Card (Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.) [Place one cent stamp here]" 5.5 x 3.5. 1940.   "T1155, Grand Canyon Hotel, The Lounge and Staircase, Yellowstone Park."   "No 213, Grand Canyon Hotel, Lounge Toward Office, Yellowstone Park. Haynes Photo" Published in "A Miracle in Hotel Building, Being the Story of the Building of the New Canyon Hotel In Yellowstone Park" on page 10.  Photographed by Frank J. Haynes.   "No 218, Grand Canyon Hotel, Dining Room, Yellowstone Park. Haynes Photo"

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