Painted Desert Inn: Water Supply – Petrified Forest National Park AZ

Description

The Painted Desert Inn was created by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), working under the National Park Service (NPS), with a grant from the Public Works Administration (PWA).  They completely rebuilt a private inn called the Stone Tree House, which had been constructed in the 1910s, which was purchased and added to the Petrified Forest National Monument in 1936 (the monument had been designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and  was elevated to Petrified Forest National Park in 1962).  The reconstruction was done in 1937-40.

The Stone Tree House had no water supply, so the CCC enrollees brought running water via a 12-mile pipeline (presumably from Adamana to the south).  To carry the pipe, the CCC ‘boys’ dug a trench by hand the entire distance. Based on the history panel at the Painted Desert Inn, the job appears to have been completed in late 1937.