When the railroad replaced the Santa Fe trail, an easterner named Fred Harvey traveled west on it all the way to California and figured that it needed hotels along the way. So he hooked up with the railroad to build Harvey hotels, track side along its duration. The first Harvey Hotel, and prototype was built in Las Vegas, the la Castaneda in 1898. He introduced Harvy Girls, and the refrigerated box car that delivered fresh food from back east all along the Santa Fe railroad at all the hotels he built. So travelers would exit the train, have a hotel and diner with foods they were use to back east. The Harvy girls became very popular. The first Harvey hotel, la Castaneda closed in the 1960's and has sat vacant ever since, but recently a philanthropist purchased it and is presently restoring it. I've been touring it throughout this process and it will be opened late next year. On one tour, my wife and I met two Harvey girls, twins, now in their 90's that worked there in the 1950's. President Teddy Roosevelt had his first Rough Riders reunion at the la Castaneda in 1901, the same Rough Riders that he had formed in Las Vegas (NM) to go to Cuba to fight in the Spanish American war. President Truman was the last president to stay at the la Castaneda before it closed.
