This is the Painted Desert Inn as it looks today. The Inn was first established by a man named Herbert Lore in the 1920s for The Homestead Act. People from the railroad in Adamana would stay the night here ($2.50 for a cot, $8 for a room). Lore wasn't the best architect or geologist; he did a poor masonry job when he built the building of petrified wood pieces and built the land on Bentanite clay (basically kitty litter). The building moves because the clay underneath expands and contract to changes in water.
In the 1930s jobs were scarce; here comes the Civilian Conservation Core (CCC). These young men pictured to the left took down and rebuilt the Inn to what you see today; furniture, beams, hand-painted skylight, and many more things! In the picture some of the men are smiling. Why do you think that his? Historically what was happening to the US in the 1930s?
Fred Kaboti is a Hopi (Native American tribe desending from our Acient Publeon tribes 2,000 years ago) artist that created the murals in the inn. The top one depicts the environment of the Painted Desert; corn (large due to the importance of corn for survival) and the sun, along with mountains, birds, and other animals.
The bottom mural illustrates the journey 2 men take to travel 150 miles to get salt from a lake. They are building a fire, being chased by a coyote, they sleep, then they collect the salt from the lake. The top left shows that they go to a Zuni tribe to pay their respects and travel back. The fire at the bottom left shows the men
signaling the village that they are ready to come home and the tribe members greet them with signing, dancing and showing their joy of their safe return.
