Vanished National Park Lodges

Above, the Zion Lodge today. It no longer has a swimming pool. Photo by Armand Vaquer

National parks have lodging facilities of one kind or another. Some are new and some are historical. Some national parks have none (such as Joshua Tree National Park).

Some of the historical ones have vanished. Some still remain but some of their facilities are now gone.

One of them was the Zion National Park Lodge swimming pool. It used to sit near the Virgin River. But it is no longer around after having been demolished either in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Swimming pool scenes (where "Buns" introduces herself to Jack Cassidy) from the Clint Eastwood movie, The Eiger Sanction (1975) were filmed at the Zion Lodge pool.

National Parks Traveler has a two-part article on national park lodges. The first part details lodges that have vanished.

They wrote (in part):

National park lodges vanish for a number of reasons. Some are destroyed by fire or weather while others close due to financial or maintenance issues. A succession of lodges once welcomed guests in the Norris area of Yellowstone National Park. Now there are none. Only the dining hall/kitchen that currently serves as a camp store remains of Two Medicine Chalet that once welcomed guests in Glacier National Park. 

Here are seven national park lodges that have been lost to visitors since our 1996 road trip. Others have undergone significant changes. For example, impressive new lodge buildings replaced many of the old cabins in the Canyon area of Yellowstone. All of the old cabins at Cedar Pass Lodge in Badlands National Park have been replaced with much nicer cabins. Likewise, much of lodging at Maswik South in the Grand Canyon is now utilized for employee housing. We plan to discuss new lodges and lodging that has undergone major changes in the next article. 

To read more, go here.