El Tovar Hotel

Theodore Roosevelt stood at the South Rim in 1903 and asked that nothing be built there. Two years later, El Tovar opened anyway — twenty feet from the edge. Designed by Charles Whittlesey for the Fred Harvey Company and opened in January 1905, the hotel was built from Oregon pine and has run continuously ever since. It holds National Historic Landmark status. The canyon hasn't moved. Neither has the hotel.