Margaret Hodgkins Mason
© Imagine

Magnificent Maggie is partner in the Marvelous Marv’s Private Grand Canyon Tour team in Williams, Arizona. (Facebook)

I’ve always been interested in old cars and old men. Williams, AZ and the Grand Canyon National Park are the perfect places to pursue my passions. In attending public lectures concerning heritage tourism, I became aware of a local mystery. This mystery is tied to the Indian Detours program that operated nearly one hundred years ago. Sometime after 1987, a vintage 1929 Cadillac 341-B six passenger touring car was purchased by Amfac, now Xanterra, successor corporations to the Fred Harvey Company at Grand Canyon. This piqued my interest in finding the old vehicle, and maybe some old man to tell tall tales about the vehicle

Fred Harvey’s Indian Detours, operated between May 15, 1926 and 1931. The Indian Detours excursion began as the guest disembarked the ATSF’s westbound California Limited at Las Vegas, New Mexico for a three day excursion in Indian country. The cost of the tour with meals and lodging was 45 dollars. The tour left the Castaneda Hotel and stopped at historic and prehistoric sights in the area. The itinerary included an overnight La Fonda in Santa Fe for the first night. The second day included Tesuque, Santa Clara and San Juan Pueblos and then Puye cliff dwellings. Returning to Santa Fe for the second overnight, the third day’s events included descending La Bajada Hill to Santo Domingo Pueblo before traveling to the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque to re board the westbound California Limited. (Eastbound guests had similar itineraries.) Longer detours could be arranged to include, Mesa Verde in Colorado, Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico or the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

This vehicle is presently located in Williams in the GCR Locomotive Shop in Williams, AZ. Harold Stacy’s grandfather, Jack Stacy, and grandmother, Lucille (Ridout) Stacy, Indian Detour driver and Courier, respectively, bought the car and kept it in the family for many years. It was last registered in 1989. What a beautiful relic of a bygone era.

What was it like to ride in the open touring car on the dirt roads of Desert View Drive and Hermit Road in the late 20s? Betty Kent Meyer reveals a personal glimpse in Pioneer Footprints “Memories of Life at the Grand Canyon in the 1920s and 1930s”. (1) What if the weather was adverse, hot or windy? What if the vehicle breaks down? At one time the Fred Harvey Company at Grand Canyon used homing pigeons to send word back that a vehicle had trouble (2). Just imagine.

Footnotes
(1) O’ Pioneer V5N8 August 1994
(2) O’ Pioneer V5N10 October 1994
Pioneer Footprints, “The Harvey Company’s Pigeons” by Herbert F. Lauzon

Bibliography

1. Over the Edge: Fred Harvey at the Grand Canyon and in the Great Southwest, Kathleen L. Howard and Diana F. Pardue, Rio Nuevo, 2016
2. The Southwestern Indian Detours: The Story of the Fred Harvey/Santa Fe Experiment in “Detourism”, Diane H. Thomas
3. Trails Begin Where Rails End: Early Day Motoring Adventures in the West and Southwest, Albert D. Manchester, 1987, pg 128-130

Special thanks to

1. “Marvelous” Marv Mason, my old man and best friend
2. Kathy Weir, Administrator, Mary Colter/Fred Harvey FB page
3. Jon Streit, General Manager, Xanterra South Rim
4. Bruce Brossman, GCRy Public Relations
5. Eric Hadder, Chief Mechanical Officer, Grand Canyon Railway
6. Craig Campbell, Chief Mechanic, GCR
7. Edward “Ted” McClure, National Park Service Librarian, Grand Canyon National Park
8. Tom Martin, Secretary, Grand Canyon Historical Society
9. Dennis Ditmanson, former Superintendent, Pecos NHS
10. Michael Herd, Custom Designs Auto Body, Williams, AZ
11. Kathy Hendrickson, Southwest Indian Detours, Las Vegas, NM