San Francisco artist Ruth Asawa [1926–2013] was one of approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans held in relocation camps during World War II. Initially detained at the Santa Anita racetrack in Southern California, she passed the time by learning how to draw from Walt Disney animators and...
Washington Avenue, home to the newly revitalized Hotel 1928, has long been a thoroughfare in the Central Texas town of Waco. Its bridge spans the Brazos River and connects East Waco to downtown. Since this city’s founding in 1849, people have come to Washington Avenue...
The Arizona Inn opened on December 18, 1930, with a dinner and dance attended by a select group of couples from the nearby University of Arizona. In four years, the establishment’s founder and owner, Isabella Greenway [1886–1953], would be sworn in as the first congresswoman...
If a city could hold its stories in four walls — memorializing its glory days, bridging its hard knocks with promises for the future — San Antonio could live within the Hotel Emma. Once a brewery but always a landmark, Texas’ only AAA five-diamond hotel...
Historic preservation and adaptive reuse shape urban architecture across America. In Colorado, there are few examples as significant as the Renaissance Denver Downtown City Center Hotel, in part because this particular effort has saved a masterpiece by Colorado mural artist and illustrator Allen Tupper True...
High in the western tip of Texas sits El Paso, a city founded more than 400 years ago, bordering New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico. It’s known for several border crossing points from adjacent Ciudad Juarez — a busy bridge between two cultures that has produced...
Visitors choose Taos, New Mexico, for a combination of reasons. Some come for the mountains and to ski at one of North America’s steepest resorts. Others want to hike to the tallest point in New Mexico, Mount Wheeler, rising more than 13,000 feet. Some choose...
On September 17, 1910, the Hermitage Hotel opened in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, hosting a celebration and feast for hundreds of distinguished guests. After two years of watching the Beaux-Arts-style structure rise 10 stories tall, the crowd eagerly entered the lobby, and an orchestra played while...
21c Museum Hotels is a boutique resort chain with an imagination. In eight properties throughout the U.S., historic structures have been restored and reimagined into posh hotels resplendent with expansive contemporary art collections — displayed indoors and out, floor to ceiling — offering, in all,...
In 1743, farmer Urbano Mantaño was awarded a land grant by the New Mexico Governor for a parcel of land just north of the city of Santa Fe near the Pueblo of Tesuque. The locals referred to the area as Cañoncito de Tesuque for its...