The ATSF did not initially provide sleepers or dining cars for its passengers, who were forced to rely on trackside establishments. These were of, to put it politely, uneven and unpredictable quality. Overall, the restaurants were dirty. It was also common practice for railroad and restaurant staff to arrange for the train to pull out after orders were taken and money exchanged but before meals could be eaten. When food was served, passengers complained of "chicken" stew whose main ingredient was really prairie dog. Lastly, brawling among staff members was reputedly common.
Entrepreneur Fred Harvey saw opportunity in the situation. In 1876, he took over the ATSF's Topeka, Kansas depot, refitted it, and opened it as the first Harvey House. It served full-course meals with tremendous amounts of food (breakfasts finished with apple pie and coffee), and soon did capacity business to locals and railroad passengers alike. Impressed with Harvey's emphasis on cleanliness, service, reasonable prices, and good food, the ATSF gave him control of food service along the route.
Harvey built a hospitality empire that worked symbiotically with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to provide consistently good service at reasonable prices in its restaurants and hotels. Quality was hugely important to Harvey. His restaurants often used fresh, local food, but he did not hesitate to bring in more exotic items like Great Lakes whitefish, Texas beef, or Atlantic shellfish. Where local water quality was lacking, the company shipped in and used its own spring water to make coffee. Menus were planned such that food did not repeat as passengers traveled on down the railroad line. Meals were typically priced at 75 cents. Harvey Houses constantly operated at a financial loss, but their consumer appeal was so important to ATSF ticket sales that the railroad line was happy to underwrite the establishments.
The famous Harvey Girls served the food. Harvey attracted them with the ads he placed in newspapers seeking "young women of good character, attractive and intelligent, 18 to 30, to work in eating houses in the West." These largely white, eastern women agreed to live under fiercely conservative standards, maintain a spotless appearance and competent demeanor, and meet Harvey's exacting standards for service in return for well-paid employment and a chance at western adventure and opportunities. Between 1883 and the late 1950s, approximately 100000 Harvey Girls made this bargain. Approximately half of them enjoyed their new environment so much that they stayed, often marrying and establishing southwestern families. Harvey Girls, the 1946 movie starring Judy Garland, paid romantic tribute to Harvey's business empire. When Garland sang the show-stopping "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe," she not only garnered an academy award, she reminded the United States of this time of railway travel and new national vistas.
Harvey restaurants proliferated until, by the late 1880s, a Harvey House was located at least every 100 miles along the ATSF route. By the end of the century, Harvey operated 15 hotels, 47 lunch and dining rooms, and 30 dining cars. By 1912, operations had grown to 65 eating houses, 12 large hotels, and 60 dining cars, all in conjunction with the Santa Fe and Frisco Railroads. In 1930, one period writer claimed, the Fred Harvey Company served 15 million meals a year.
Railroads remained the primary mode of long-distance travel until the 1920s, and the Fred Harvey Company saw potential in a series of "Indian Detours" serving the Southwest tourist trade. The Santa Fe Railroad and Fred Harvey teamed up to market the route between Chicago and Los Angeles, building major hotels in communities along the way - in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, Gallup, Santa Fe and, finally, in Winslow. Planned just before the stock market crash of 1929, La Posada was the last of the great railroad hotels. Colter, who designed many Harvey hotels along with marvelously imaginative hotels in the Grand Canyon, always considered La Posada her best work. The hotel opened in May of 1930, at the beginning of the Great Depression. During the 1930s, 40s and 50s, passengers abandoned trains and took to cars. - NPS