January 2019

Looking for the Grand View
The Search for Grand Canyon’s Vanished Post Office
BY JOE R. CODY
Figure 1. The front of Grand View Hotel,
circa 1900: Tourists loiter while a wagon
delivers supplies. Image courtesy of
Northern Arizona University, Cline Library,
Colorado Plateau Archives.
I
have never enjoyed the Grand Canyon. This malaise hasn’t prevented me from
visiting it many times with friends and family. I put on a happy face and pose
for pictures, yet my secret desire is a swift return to the parking lot and a timely
departure. For me, the incredible view of the Grand Canyon is not enough to offset
a general fear of heights, and my dislike of both sunburn and large crowds of tourists.
It was during another routine family vacation to the Grand Canyon in the fall of
2016 that I found my Grand Canyon, the one I could love. Here was a hidden place
cooled in the shade of tall ponderosas, untrammeled by tourists, and rich with the
obscure history of pioneers and their letters.
My study of Arizona Territorial post offices had revealed a Grand Canyon mystery
to me. Of the five post offices established at the Grand Canyon during Arizona’s
territorial period, the location of one of them − Grandview − was unknown.
The Grandview Post Office was a busy place housed within the Grand View
Hotel at the south rim of the Grand Canyon, approximately 11 miles east of Grand
Canyon village. Figure 1 shows a picture of the hotel around 1900, which I have
colorized.
44 AMERICAN PHILATELIST / JANUARY 2019