|
El Garces
|
|
|
El Garces Hotel under reconstruction, April 12, 2009.
|
|
|
|
|
| Location: | 950 Front St., Needles, California |
|---|---|
| Built: | 1908 |
| Architect: | Wilson, Francis W. |
| Architectural style: | Classical Revival |
| Governing body: | Private owner |
| NRHP Reference#: |
02000537 [1] |
| Added to NRHP: | May 17, 2002 |
El Garces Hotel is a historic railroad station and hotel located in Needles, California. Built by the Santa Fe Railroad under contract with the Fred Harvey Company in 1908, the hotel was designed in an elegant Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts style and was considered "the Crown Jewel" of the entire Fred Harvey chain. This early Harvey House was designed by architect Francis W. Wilson.
The hotel was named in honor of Spanish missionary Father Francisco Garcés, an explorer in 1774 with Juan Bautista de Anza and the legendary De Anza expedition. The hotel's restaurant was staffed by the famous Harvey Girls, young women who worked for the Fred Harvey Company.
El Garces hotel and restaurant closed in 1949.[2] Historic U.S. Route 66 went by the hotel from the 1920s through the 1960s. The Santa Fe railroad station was used by Amtrak until it closed in 1988. Restoration and reconstruction of the historic El Garces began on March 7, 2007,[3] by the owners of the historic La Posada Hotel in Arizona. As of mid-2011, the project was on hold. [4]
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||