From 1923 to 1972, the Utah Parks Company, a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railroad, brought thousands of visitors to southwestern Utah and northern Arizona, with Cedar City serving as the starting point for its "Grand Circle" bus tours to Zion National Park, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon National Park, and Cedar Breaks National Monument. The company operated as a concessionaire in nearby national parks, building, maintaining, and staffing park lodges, inns, cabins, and the Hotel El Escalante in Cedar City. This commissary served as the administrative and logistical headquarters for the company, where supplies, reservations, accounting, maintenance, and hiring were coordinated. Supplies arrived by train, were unloaded at the south-side dock, and were then sent by truck to parks and monuments several times a week. The building included a freight elevator for canned goods and bulk supplies, large refrigerators for meat sliced to order by an on-site butcher, a large humidor for tobacco products, and shelves for concession and curio items. The commissary staff controlled nearly every aspect of field operations, and driver Brent Turek recalled unloading supplies at Cedar Breaks after the slow climb up Cedar Canyon, then repacking loads carefully to prevent breakage, though one-quart bottles of chocolate milk commonly broke at breakfast.