Canyon Castle

Sunrise on Mary Colter\’s Desert View Watchtower.

Desert View Watchtower is a 70-foot (21 m)-high stone building located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon within Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, United States. The four-story structure, completed in 1932, was designed by American architect Mary Colter, an employee of the Fred Harvey Company who also created and designed many other buildings in the Grand Canyon vicinity including Hermit\’s Rest and the Lookout Studio. The interior contains murals by Fred Kabotie.

The bottom floor of the tower now contains a gift shop while the upper floors serve as an observation deck from which visitors to the national park can view eastern portions of the Grand Canyon. Desert View Watchtower was designated a United States National Historic Landmark on May 28, 1987.

In 2008, two tourists were banned from all American national parks after using white-out and permanent marker to correct the punctuation on a sign on the Desert View Watchtower, which had been painted by Colter.