El Rancho Hotel, Gallup, N.M.

Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn stayed here during production of The Sea of Grass; Burt Lancaster and Lee Remick were guests when they made The Hallelujah Trail. The list of Hollywood stars who bedded down at the El Rancho Hotel in Gallup, N.M., goes on and on: Gene Autry, Jack Benny, Humphrey Bogart, Kirk Douglas, Henry Fonda, Ronald Reagan, James Stewart, John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, and Mae West.



Built in 1937 by R. E. "Griff" Griffith, brother of movie mogul D. W. Griffith, the El Rancho's rustic charm was attractive to the movie makers and stars filming in the surrounding red rock canyons. Their autographed photos line the walls of the spectacular two-story lobby with dark wood beams, Navajo rugs, mounted trophy heads, a circular staircase, and an enormous stone fireplace.



Today the El Rancho is on the National Register of Historic Places and a popular attraction along Route 66. We stopped for lunch at the café where you can order a Lucille Ball beef patty with fruit and cottage cheese or a Roy Rogers half-pound burger. Paris and Dante raced up and down down the hallways full of black-and-white images of bygone Hollywood stars--as I studied each one carefully.

"Why do you keep looking at those pictures?" Paris asked.

"These are really famous people and it's amazing to think that they were all here--out in the middle of nowhere."

"But the pictures look so old. They're boring." (Paris's new favorite word.)

And then I showed Paris a photograph of Katharine Hepburn.

"Ahhh...She's really pretty."