Desert View Watchtower

Mary Colter spent six months researching Ancestral Puebloan architecture before completing this 70-foot stone tower in 1932 — the last of her series of visitor structures at the Grand Canyon. She modeled it not on any single prototype but from several, with the closest parallels at Hovenweep National Monument. Inside, Fred Kabotie painted murals on the tower walls; Fred Geary added petroglyph-style decorations copied from now-destroyed rock art at Abo, New Mexico. The structure is a National Historic Landmark.