in were forced to take the same way out until the Zion – Mount Carmel Highway and Tunnel was completed in 1930. The tunnel was not initiated until it was apparent that Bryce Canyon would be added to the National Park System. After it was completed, the Utah Parks Company set up the "Grand Loop Tour" for tourists taking buses through Zion, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, and Cedar Breaks; the tunnel cut travel time to Bryce Canyon by half and reduced the distance from . After 1936, bus tours were offered on the National Parks-standard White Model 706. As the twentieth century progressed, railroad passenger traffic declined and the Union Pacific's interest in supporting National Park tourism correspondingly lessened. The railroad ended passenger train service to Cedar City in 1960, and in 1972 the Union Pacific donated its concession-related infrastructure to the National Park Service. The facilities at Cedar Breaks were razed, as were some of the developments at Bryce and Zion, but the remaining lodge facilities remain in use today. In March 2007, Xanterra Parks and Resorts took over the concession at the former Utah Parks Company locations. In March 2014, the concession inside Bryce Canyon National Park was taken over by Forever Resorts. Properties The Utah Parks Company constructed rustic-style, stone-and-log lodges at each of the Park Service locations it served. Most of the major buildings were designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, a noted period architect. (Underwood also designed the Ahwahnee Hotel (1925) in Yosemite National Park, and Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park.) Underwood's surviving Utah Parks Company buildings are considered exceptional examples of the Rustic style of architecture, and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The company also owned the landmark El Escalante Hotel in Cedar City where visitors intending to take the park loop on a Utah Parks Company bus were required to stay their first night in Cedar City, which became known as the "Gateway to the Parks". 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 took over the El Escalante, which offered only 23 rooms, and some were forced to share bathrooms. It was a common joke among escorts that if you could survive that first night at the El