Fred Harvey Company

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The Casa del Desierto ("House of the Desert") located in Barstow, California is seen here in 2006. The Spanish-Moroccan designed structure took two years to construct, and opened its doors on February 22, 1911.

The origin of the Fred Harvey Company can be traced to the 1875 opening of two railroad eating houses located at Wallace, Kansas and Hugo, Colorado on the Kansas Pacific Railway. These cafés were opened by Fred Harvey, then a freight agent for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The café operation ended within a year, but Fred Harvey had been convinced of the potential profits from providing a high quality food and service at railroad eating houses. His longtime employer, the Burlington Railroad, declined his offer of establishing a system-wide eating house operation at all railroad meal stops, but the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway subsequently contracted with Harvey for several eating houses on an experimental basis.

1 History
2 Noteworthy Fred Harvey Hotels
3 Separation from the Santa Fe Railway
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] History

Before the inclusion of dining cars in passenger train consists became common practice, a rail passenger's only option for meal service in transit was to patronize one of the roadhouses often located near the railroad's water stops. Fare typically consisted of nothing more than rancid meat, cold beans, and week-old coffee. Such poor conditions understandably discouraged many Americans from making the journey westward.

A preserved "Harvey Girl" uniform.

The subsequent growth and development of the Fred Harvey Company was closely related to that of the Santa Fe Railway. Under the terms of an oral agreement, Harvey opened his first depot restaurant in Topeka, Kansas in January of 1876. Railroad officials and passengers alike were impressed with Fred Harvey's strict standards for high quality food and first class service. As a result, the Santa Fe entered into subsequent contracts with Harvey wherein he was given a "blank check" to set up a series of "eating houses" along almost the entire route. At more prominent locations, these eating houses evolved into hotels, many of which survive today. By the late 1880s, there was a Fred Harvey dining facility located every 100 miles along the Santa Fe line.

The Santa Fe agreed to convey fresh meat and produce free-of-charge to any Harvey House via its own private line of refrigerator cars, the Santa Fe Refrigerator Despatch, and in them food was shipped from every corner of the United States. The company maintained two dairy facilities (the largest of the two was situated in Las Vegas, New Mexico) to ensure a consistent and adequate supply of fresh milk. When dining cars began to appear on trains, Santa Fe contracted with the Fred Harvey Company to operate the food service on the diners, and all Santa Fe advertising proclaimed "Fred Harvey Meals all the Way."

Harvey's meals were served in sumptuous portions that provided a good value for the traveling public; for instance, pies were cut into fourths, rather than sixths, which was the industry standard at the time. The Harvey Company and the railroad established a series of signals that allowed the dining room staff to make the necessary preparations to feed an entire train in just thirty minutes. Harvey Houses served their meals on fine China and Irish linens. Fred Harvey, a fastidious innkeeper, set high standards for efficiency and cleanliness in his establishments, personally inspecting them as often as possible. It was said that nothing escaped his notice, and he was even known to completely overturn a poorly-set table. Male customers were even required to wear a coat and tie in many of Harvey's dining rooms. Fulfilling their patriotic duty, the Harvey Houses served many a meal to GIs traveling on troop trains during World War II.

This mutually-beneficial relationship, characterized as one of the most successful and influential business partnerships in the early American West, endured until 1968.

[edit] Facilities

The Santa Fe's San Pablo ferry plies the waters of San Francisco Bay in the early 20th century.

In the Southwest, Fred Harvey hired architect Mary Colter to design influential landmark hotels in Santa Fe, and Gallup, New Mexico, Winslow, Arizona, at the South Rim and the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the 1910s and 1920s. The rugged, landscape-integrated design principles of Colter's work influenced a generation of subsequent western American architecture through the U.S. National Park Service and Civilian Conservation Corps structures built in the Depression. Together, Harvey and Colter created an entire set of cultural images.

It has been suggested that the Harvey Houses originated the "blue-plate special," a daily low-priced complete meal served on a blue-patterned china plate; an 1892 Harvey menu mentions them, some thirty years before the term became widespread. In addition to the Santa Fe, the Harvey Company operated dining facilities for the Gulf Coast and Santa Fe Railway, the Kansas Pacific Railway, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, and the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis.

The Santa Fe maintained and operated a fleet of three passenger ferry boats that connected Oakland with San Francisco by water. Ships traveled the eight miles between the San Francisco Ferry Terminal and the railroad's Point Richmond terminal across the Bay. The service was orignally established as a continuation of the company's named passenger train runs such as the Angel and the Saint. The larger two ships, the San Pablo and the San Pedro, each featured a newsstand-lunch counter located on the main deck, and a dining room on the upper deck. Meals, sandwiches, sweet rolls, pastries, and coffee were served. Santa Fe discontinued ferry service in 1933 due to the effects of the Great Depression.

[edit] The "Harvey Girls"

A publcity photo for The Harvey Girls featuring Judy Garland, John Hodiak, and Angela Lansbury.

In 1883, unhappy with the conduct of his rowdy male service staff (who often picked fights with the customers and arrived at work drunk—or not at all), Harvey implemented a policy of hiring only female waitresses. He sought out single, well-mannered, and educated ladies, and placed ads in newspapers throughout the east coast and midwest for "Young women, 18 to 30 years of age, of good character, attractive and intelligent." The girls were paid USD $17.50 a month plus room, board, and tips to start.

The girls were subjected to a strict 10:00 p.m. curfew, administered by a senior Harvey Girl who assumed the role and responsibilities of house mother. The official starched black and white uniform (which was designed to diminish the female physique) consisted of a skirt that hung no more than eight inches off the floor, "Elsie" collars, opaque black stockings, and black shoes. The hair was restrained in a net and tied with a regulation white ribbon; makeup of any sort was absolutely prohibited, as was chewing gum on duty. "Harvey Girls" (as they soon came to be known) were required into a one-year employment contract, and forfeit half their base pay should they fail to complete the term of service. Marriage was the most common reason for a girl to terminate her employment.

In a mythology that has grown around the Harvey Houses, these female employees are said to have helped to "civilize the American Southwest." This legend found its highest expression in The Harvey Girls, a 1942 novel by Samuel Hopkins Adams, and, more notably, the 1946 MGM musical which was inspired by it. The film starred Judy Garland, was directed by George Sidney, and introduced the Johnny Mercer song "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe."

[edit] Dining car service

Harvey initially balked at the suggestion that in-transit dining facilities be added to all Santa Fe trains operating west of Kansas City. Eventually, Harvey agreed to support the railroad in this endeavor, and the California Limited became the first of Santa Fe's name trains to feature Harvey Company meal service en route. Later trains, such as the vaunted Super Chief, included dining cars (staffed by Fred Harvey Company personnel) as part of the standard passenger car complement right from the outset.

[edit] Noteworthy Fred Harvey Hotels

El Garces Hotel and railroad depot in Needles, California around the turn of the 20th century. The facility, which opened in 1887, was named after Padre Francisco Garcés, a noted Franciscan Spanish priest who made several journeys through the region in 1771 and 1774 en route between southern Arizona and the California Missions.

Of the eighty-four Fred Harvey facilities, some of the more notable include:

The Alvarado — Albuquerque, New Mexico; closed in 1969
The Bisonte — Hutchinson, Kansas; closed in 1946
The Casa del Desierto — Barstow, California; closed in 1959
Castañeda — Las Vegas, New Mexico; closed in 1948
El Garces — Needles, California; closed in 1958
El Navajo — Gallup, New Mexico; closed in 1957
El Ortiz — Lamy, New Mexico; closed in 1938
El Otero — La Junta, Colorado; closed in 1948
El Tovar — Grand Canyon, Arizona; still in operation
El Vaquero — Dodge City, Kansas; closed in 1948
The Escalante — Ash Fork, Arizona; closed in 1948
The Fray Marcos — Williams, Arizona; restored and reopened as a historic hotel (name changed to Grand Canyon Railway Hotel)
La Fonda — Santa Fe, New Mexico; still in operation
Las Chavez — Vaughn, New Mexico; closed in 1936
La Posada — Winslow, Arizona; closed in 1957; restored and reopened as a historic hotel
The Sequoyah — Syracuse, Kansas; closed in 1936

Harvey House sign in Beloit, WI just off of I-90. This sign sat for years in disrepair before being dismantled a few weeks after photo was taken in the summer of 2006.

[edit] Separation from the Santa Fe Railway

Beginning in the 1930s, the Fred Harvey Company began expanding into other locations beyond the reach of the Santa Fe Railroad, and often away from rail passenger routes altogether. Restaurants were opened in such locations as the Chicago Union Station (the largest facility operated by Harvey), San Diego Union Station, the San Francisco Bus Terminal, and the Albuquerque International Airport; the last of these was established at the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal in 1939, and could accommodate nearly 300 diners.

From about 1959 until about 1975, the Fred Harvey organization operated a series of restaurants in the Illinois Tollway "Oases," a set of highway rest stops built on bridges over the tollway. The original Fred Harvey company, as well as the company's very close affiliation with the Santa Fe Railway lasted until 1968 when it was purchased by the Amfac Corporation of Hawaii.

[edit] References

An interior view of the dining room in The Alvarado Hotel, situated in the Rio Grande Valley, Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1904.

Duke, Donald (1997). Santa Fe...The Railroad Gateway to the American West, Volume 2. Golden West Books, San Marino, CA. ISBN 0-87095-110-6.
Foster, George H. and Peter C. Weiglin (1992). The Harvey House Cookbook: Memories of Dining along the Santa Fe Railroad. Longstreet Press, Atlanta, GA. ISBN 1-56352-357-4.
Gustafson, Lee and Phil Serpico (1992). Santa Fe Coast Lines Depots: Los Angeles Division. Omni Publications, Palmdale, CA. ISBN 0-88418-003-4.
Henderson, James David (1969). Meals by Fred Harvey. Texas Christian University Press, Fort Worth, TX.
Poling-Kempes, Lesley (1989). The Harvey Girls, Women Who Opened the West. Paragon House, New York, NY. ISBN 1-55778-064-1.
Porterfield, James D. (1993). Dining by Rail: The History and Recipes of America's Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine. St. Martin's Press, New York, NY. ISBN 0-312-18711-4.
Thomas, D.H. (1978). The Southwestern Indian Detours. Hunter Publishing Co., Phoenix, AZ. ISBN 0-918126-11-8.

Fred Harvey's Hotel Castañeda (Las Vegas, New Mexico) in 1904. The two-story, Mission Revival Style brick structure is laid out in a "U"-shaped plan and features a central bell tower surrounded by an arched portico.