El Escalante Hotel

The El Escalante Hotel was located on the corner of main street and 200 north where Sizzler is located today. The purchase and completion of Hotel El Escalante cost $265,000. The El Escalante Hotel had its best year ever in 1941 and still lost $14,000. The Utah Parks Company owned the hotel. Visitors intending to take the park loop on a Utah Parks Company bus were required to stay their first night in Cedar City. The venerable El Escalante was especially well known to escorts in the 1960s, many from Greyhound Bus Lines, arriving via bus for a tour of the Parks. With up to 39 travelers per tour, the groups confronted the El Escalante, offering only 23 rooms, some sharing bathrooms. It was a common joke among escorts that if you could survive that first night at the El Escalante with a full tour, you could survive most anything. The hotel had a banquet hall. Before the hotel was built, Jim Hunter used to live in a home on that same property. Before the building was demolished, it was used as dorms for college students and KSUB radio had a studio in the basement.