East Entrance

The historical buildings and structures of Zion National Park represent a variety of buildings, interpretive structures, signs and infrastructure associated with the National Park Service's operations in Zion National Park, Utah. Structures vary in size and scale from the Zion Lodge to road culverts and curbs, nearly all of which were designed using native materials and regional construction techniques in an adapted version of the National Park Service Rustic style. A number of the larger structures were designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, while many of the smaller structures were designed or coordinated with the National Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs. The bulk of the historic structures date to the 1920s and 1930s. Most of the structures of the 1930s were built using Civilian Conservation Corps labor. The version of the National Park Service Rustic style that was adopted at Zion was less extreme in its rustic character than that employed at other parks. Compared with the Bryce Canyon Lodge, the Zion Park Lodge used smaller elements of timber and stonework, and employed milled lumber in place of rough log elements. This reflected the more settled character of the Zion area, which retained farms and irrigation systems at the time the first visitor facilities were built. Many of Zion's historical structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), either as individual structures or as contributing structures in a historic district. They represent an unusually homogeneous series of buildings for a national park, sharing details of composition, scale and materials. They have collectively been described as some the best work in the National Park Service Rustic style. (The NRHP-listed structures are also listed in alphabetical order in National Register of Historic Places listings in Zion National Park.) The park also preserves remnants of early Mormon settlement in Zion Canyon, which began in 1862. Two irrigation canals and a cable…