Hotel San Carlos rises here in Phoenix, right in front of you. This is an operating hotel and a tourist site, known for ghost sightings and for being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as San Carlos Hotel. It is also a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Beneath your feet is the very ground that held Phoenix’s first school: a 4-room adobe school inaugurated in 1874, replaced by a larger structure in 1879, and enlarged several times thereafter until it was condemned in 1916 with a luxury hotel in mind. You’ll also hear the quieter history—the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that claimed many area children. In 1919 the land was bought by the Babbitt family, relatives of Bruce Babbitt, who intended to build a hotel.
The San Carlos project was finally begun by Charles Harris and Dwight D. Heard, who purchased the property from the Babbitts, formed the Hotel San Carlos Company, and construction began. Schoolroom, loss, civic ambition, and hospitality all meet in this one building, on the very spot where a 4-room adobe school opened in 1874.