Page

Page did not exist before the dam. In 1957 the government chose Manson Mesa, at about 4,300 feet and 600 feet above today's Lake Powell, as a housing camp for workers building the Glen Canyon Dam, and obtained a 17-square-mile site from the Navajo Nation in a land exchange. The settlement was first called Government Camp and then named after John C. Page, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation from 1936 to 1943. A new bridge across the canyon, finished in 1959, was built to bring in materials for the dam.

The dam was completed in 1966, and the rising water of Lake Powell flooded Glen Canyon, the series of sandstone gorges that John Wesley Powell had explored in 1869. Glen Canyon National Recreation Area was created around the lake in 1972, and Page was formally incorporated as a town in 1975. The town also became home to the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station, which powered the pumps sending Colorado River water to central and southern Arizona; it closed in 2019, and its three smokestacks were demolished in December 2020.

Tourism grew steadily, and in 1997 Antelope Canyon was opened to visitors on Navajo land beside the town. The same year a flash flood killed eleven tourists in Lower Antelope Canyon; warning and safety systems have since been improved, though the risk remains. In the 21st century a long drought has lowered Lake Powell repeatedly; in April 2022 it held under a quarter of its capacity, and it fell to that level again in the summer of 2026.

Page is a young, practical town shaped by water and power, and its culture is outdoors: boating and houseboat holidays on Lake Powell, fishing at Lees Ferry, hiking and photography in the canyons, and flights over the lake. More than three million people a year visit the recreation area, and the town is busiest in the summer boating season.

The Navajo Nation adjoins Page, and Navajo culture is part of daily life. Antelope Canyon lies within Lake Powell Navajo Tribal Park, run by the Navajo Nation's parks department, and visits are only on guided tours. Navajo dinner theatre in the area presents powwow dancing, flute playing and drumming. Visitors should remember that tribal land has its own laws, including a ban on alcohol, and that the Navajo Nation keeps daylight saving time while the rest of Arizona does not.

The landscape has drawn film-makers too: the 2001 comedy Evolution was shot in Page, and the canyons draw photographers from around the world. Lake Powell itself remains controversial — environmentalists have pushed to drain it and restore Glen Canyon to a free-flowing river, while others value it for water storage, power and recreation.

About 7,400 people lived in Page at the 2020 census, in a city covering about 16.6 square miles of mesa top and desert. The town sits on top of the mesa. It is a young population: at the 2020 census the median age was 32.9, and Navajo was the most reported ancestry, given by about two in five residents. Tourism is central to its economy, with the recreation area around the lake drawing more than three million visitors a year.

The closure of the Navajo Generating Station in 2019 removed one of the area's two great power plants. Life now follows the visitor seasons: crowded summers on the lake and at Antelope Canyon, and quiet winters.

Water and the lake's level are constant subjects. The 21st-century drought on the Colorado River has repeatedly lowered the lake. The small airport keeps a federally subsidised air service, a weekly newspaper, the Lake Powell Chronicle, covers local news, and a daily shuttle links the town with Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

Page's food reflects its position as a road-trip stop at the edge of the Navajo Nation. Lake Powell Boulevard has restaurants, Mexican places such as El Tapatio and a Texas barbecue restaurant, Big John's, serving the visitors who fill the town each summer, and most of the town's bars are along its southern end. Big John's occupies a former gas station converted into a slow-cooked barbecue restaurant, and the Starlite, serving American and Chinese food, has been in business in Page for more than 30 years.

Navajo food is the local speciality. Fry bread — dough fried until puffed and golden — is eaten with honey or turned into the Navajo taco, topped with beans, meat, cheese and lettuce, and it turns up at powwows and community events across the Navajo Nation.

Campgrounds and houseboats give many visitors the chance to cook for themselves, and houseboat holidays on the lake are built around meals on board.