The Painted Desert Inn National Historic Landmark, which overlooks the desert from Kachina Point, once served as a lunch counter and trading post for early travelers on Route 66. After the Park Service purchased the inn from private owners in 1936, workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) rebuilt it in the Southwestern style, not-so-cleverly covering some of the building's original petrified-wood walls with stucco. Inside, they installed oak floors and hand-painted glass ceiling tiles, and added six guest rooms, each with a fireplace. Upon completion in 1940, the 28-room inn became an immediate hit with travelers. It was closed again, however, during the last years of World War II. After the war, the Fred Harvey Company managed the building, using it as a visitor center and restaurant until 1963, when the new Painted Desert Visitor Center opened.
In 1947, Fred Kabotie, the renowned Hopi artist whose work also graces the Desert Watchtower at the Grand Canyon, painted several murals inside, including one that depicted the annual journey of the Hopi to the sacred Zuni salt mines. Kabotie's murals may have helped save the building, which had severe structural problems caused by expansion and contraction of the clay underneath it. When it was threatened with demolition in the 1960s, preservationists cited the value of Kabotie's art as they called for protecting the building. The Painted Desert Inn was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Today it houses the Painted Desert Inn Museum, which celebrates the area's cultural heritage. Open daily 8am to 4pm, the museum displays American Indian artifacts found in and around the park. Among them is a famous petroglyph of a mountain lion--an image reproduced in contemporary art throughout the Southwest. The building itself is also worth admiring. Several of Kabotie's murals can be seen, and the wood floors and glass ceiling tiles are intact. To the rear of the building, one of the original petrified-wood walls has been exposed. Park crews continue to work on the exterior, but a more significant renovation is on hold, pending an appropriation from Congress.
