288 DAYSSan Francisco · 1915
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The Zone · The Zone

The Grand Canyon of Arizona (Santa Fe Railway)

The Santa Fe Railway's five-acre painted canyon, ridden in open-sided railway cars, with a Pueblo village on the roof of its entrance.

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway made the first real start on the Zone, laying sewers, gas and water pipes for its concession as early as March 1913. W. F. Sesser, manager of the railroad's exhibits, had long wanted to build a Grand Canyon, and here he had room for one. The Santa Fe took about five acres with 300 feet of frontage. The painter Walter W. Burredge worked out a vast field of realistic scenery. Visitors boarded eight standard-gauge passenger cars, open on one side, and rode from the Zone entrance out along the rim of the painted gorge.

The entrance building was a show in itself. On its roof stood a large pueblo, reached by rock trails and ladders and occupied by Native Americans, and artists came to sketch it rather than travel to the reservations. Fred Harvey, famous for the Santa Fe's station restaurants, sold Navajo blankets and curios there. During the fair the Daughters of the American Revolution kept their headquarters in the front of the building.

Crowds came, but the price of building it at a scale that could suggest the real canyon was never repaid. The Grand Canyon took in nearly $90,000, some of it from blanket sales at the Hopi village, against a construction cost Todd put 'near $350,000.'

At a glance

  • About five acres with a 300-foot frontage; cost about $350,000 (Todd).
  • Visitors rode eight standard-gauge open-sided passenger cars.
  • Scenery painted by Walter W. Burredge; installed under W. F. Sesser.
  • Receipts nearly $90,000.
  • The railway began utility work for it in March 1913, the first construction by any concessionaire.

Afterward

Demolished with the Zone in 1916; the site is Marina District housing east of Laguna Street.

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