Painted Desert Inn

Herbert Lore built a tourist stop from petrified wood here in 1924 and called it the Stone Tree House. The Park Service bought it, and between 1937 and 1940 Civilian Conservation Corps crews rebuilt it to Lyle Bennett's pueblo-revival design, hand-painting the skylights and hammering the tin fixtures. Mary Colter reworked the interior in 1947 and brought in Hopi artist Fred Kabotie, whose murals trace a Hopi salt-gathering journey across the Painted Desert. Slated for demolition in 1975, the inn was saved by public outcry and named a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petrified Forest National Park — 8.8 mi
  Two hundred million years turned to stone — and a Route 66 ghost
• Holbrook — 24 mi
  A Santa Fe railroad town once too tough for women and churches, now the seat of Navajo County, gateway to the Petrified Forest, and home to the concrete teepees of the Wigwam Motel.

More markers nearby

• Painted Desert Community Complex — 1.2 mi
• The Painted Desert — 1.6 mi
• Summer Solstice Marker — 7.5 mi
• Newspaper Rock Petroglyphs — 8.4 mi