Arizona’s oldest hotel is 134 years old. Here’s how it survived

Arizona’s oldest hotel and one of the earliest structures in Williams, The Grand Canyon Hotel served a number of purposes, from hotel to grocery store and more.

USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

November 9, 2026

Visitors in the lobby at the Grand Canyon Hotel on historic Route 66 in downtown Williams on Aug. 20, 2026. (Mark Henle/The Republic via Reuters Connect)

The Grand Canyon Hotel is Arizona’s oldest hotel, surviving 134 years in Williams.

Although Arizona has only been a state since 1912, many of its oldest buildings predate statehood.

During the 1880s railroad construction started to pop up across northern Arizona, and settlers started to move in for the agricultural possibilities that the northern pines had to offer.

Cormick E. Boyce built the Grand Canyon Hotel and is often credited as the man who built Williams because of his early ambition for the young town. The Grand Canyon Hotel was one of the first large structures in Williams and was built to attract travelers with its extravagant Victorian style.

Over its 134-year history, the building has undergone much restoration while still maintaining its historic charm.

The oldest hotel in Arizona

Williams was founded in 1881, and Boyce wasted no time establishing the town, building The Grand Canyon Hotel and opening its doors in 1882.

Just south of the Grand Canyon along historic Route 66, the hotel stood as the last stop for many travelers heading to the Grand Canyon, even taking tourists by carriage to sightsee the south rim.

As one of the earliest structures in Williams, The Grand Canyon Hotel not only acted as a hotel, but as a dance hall, grocery store, drug store and a meeting place for the historic fraternal organization Knights of Pythias.

However, from 1881 to the early 1900s, the town faced many fires. The town’s many wooden structures were devastated by the fires.

Although The Grand Canyon Hotel was damaged by the fires over the years, the building notably never burned down. It’s believed that the reason the hotel survived multiple fires from the 1880s to the early 1900s is that Boyce was one of the few who had their building constructed with its own independent water supply.

The Grand Canyon building was also first constructed with brick, as many buildings, like the historic Pollock Building in Williams, did after a large fire in 1901.

And while all of Williams feels like a town frozen in time, The Grand Canyon Hotel really was. The building sat vacant from the 1970s until it was purchased and restored in 2004. In 2023, the hotel was taken over by new owners, renovating the building while still matching the town’s historic charm with exposed brick, subway tile and vintage crown molding details.