Join the Fred Harvey Nation

The four-day gathering celebrates Fred Harvey (1835–1901), the London-born entrepreneur who introduced high-quality foods and hospitality, administered by the iconic Harvey Girls, to the American West. Harvey’s empire of rail-stop eateries, exquisite hotels, and souvenir shops stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles along the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway, from about 1880 to 1970. (New Mexico boasted 18 total Harvey locations, the most of any state.)

“Harvey revolutionized Western travel and essentially created the world’s first chain restaurant and hotel,” says Fried, whose 2010 book, Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West—One Meal at a Time (Bantam Books), was a New York Times bestseller. “If you care about American history and especially New Mexico’s history, you care about the Fred Harvey Company and all the things associated with it.”

During the Harvey History Weekend, die-hard Fredheads, the Fred-curious, and members of the Harvey family (both descendants and former employees) flock to a series of lectures, exhibitions, meals, films, and field trips to tour Harvey properties, including the Castañeda Hotel, in Las Vegas, and the Belén Harvey House Museum. The crown jewel of the convention is the Fred Harvey Foodie Dinner and auction, held on Saturday night in the ballroom at La Fonda on the Plaza—a former Harvey House itself.

“Harvey was the ultimate foodie,” says Fried, explaining that the founder hired classically trained European chefs to head his culinary program. “He used his partnership with the AT & SF to ship fresh, refrigerated ingredients, like oysters, to remote locations,” which included Lamy and Rincón.

At the dinner and auction benefit for the New Mexico History Museum, more than 300 guests dress in their Southwest finest to bid on Harvey memorabilia and local goods, while a who’s who of Santa Fe’s culinary scene serve a four-course dinner of Harvey-inspired dishes, such as lobster cocktail and “choo-choo” chocolate mousse.

As a first-timer, I looked forward to the weekend’s festivities and learning more about Harvey’s historical significance. But the most intriguing element was the Fredheads themselves. What drives their almost fanatical admiration for businesses that shuttered more than half a century ago? And how did New Mexico become the center of Harvey Nation?

“HOW MANY NEWBIES ARE HERE?” FRIED asks from the podium inside the history museum’s packed Harvey Mezzanine auditorium. About half the audience in the sold-out 210-seat theater raises a hand, much to Fried’s delight. “That number used to be like four hands,” says the University of Pennsylvania English professor. “It just gets bigger every year.”

From the lectures that follow, it becomes clear that the enduring popularity of Fred Harvey owes much to a perennial fascination with the Harvey Girls, a cadre of trailblazing women who moved West to work at the Harvey Houses. The idea for a fleet of all-women servers came to Harvey in 1883, after a violent attack against Black male waiters occurred at an eating house in Ratón. The company correctly wagered that young, single women dressed in long black dresses and crisp white aprons would help “civilize” unruly patrons.

The gambit inadvertently created the first important national group of working women, according to Fried. Their jobs enabled financial independence, the opportunity to leave home, and the chance to meet new people in the rapidly populating West. “I was from Kentucky; my father was a carpenter,” May Etta Arnold recalls in Lesley Poling-Kempes’s 1989 book, The Harvey Girls: Women Who Opened the West (Paragon). “I needed work and Fred Harvey sounded like an adventure. It was!”

In a fascinating talk, fashion historian Bonnie Hansen explains how the evolving Harvey Girl work uniforms reflected contemporaneous societal norms. For instance, the modest black-and-white dresses were meant to evoke a nun’s habit and cater to Victorian-era ideals of chastity. “Do you know where the terms straightlaced and loose woman derive from?” she asks, demonstrating on a mannequin how tight the Girls wore their corsets.

During the mid-20th century, La Fonda became one of the few Harvey Houses to subvert the uniform and promote local culture by incorporating Mexican-style embroidered floral blouses and peasant skirts. When Fried alerts the lecture audience that two of the last surviving La Fonda Harvey Girls are in attendance, 86-year-old twins Bernette Jarvis and Beverly Ireland receive a standing ovation from the starstruck crowd.

The allure of the Harvey Girls was further cemented in the popular imagination with the 1946 release of the Judy Garland musical film The Harvey Girls. “I first learned about Fred Harvey from watching The Harvey Girls at my grandparents’ house as a kid,” says Matthew Klug, an architectural designer from Illinois in his twenties. “I was really into trains and railroads, so it grabbed my attention.”

On several occasions throughout the weekend, participants earnestly break into songs from the musical: “Perfection in the dining room, perfection in the dorm. We even want perfection in the Harvey uniform…”

AFTER THE TALKS, I STEP OUT INTO THE museum mezzanine, which holds the permanent exhibition Setting the Standard: The Fred Harvey Company and Its Legacy. Near a display of Harvey Girl uniforms, sterling silver serving spoons, and other Harvey dining room memorabilia, I ask a group of attendees what brought them to the event.

“I saw Harvey china at a museum in Galveston and fell in love with it,” says Kathy Kelly, who traveled from Houston, “especially the pieces designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter.” (Colter was Harvey’s famous, glass-ceiling-breaking architect and interior designer. She popularized a distinctive design style characterized by Southwestern, Spanish, and Native influences.) Kelly’s friend Ed Turner, from Salt Lake City, tells me he didn’t know anything about Fred Harvey before this weekend, but he thought the event sounded fun. “If you see me wearing one of those Harvey T-shirts, though, I’m only doing it ironically,” he whispers.

For Theresa Ball and David Parsons of Gallatin, Tennessee, a casual interest in the Harvey Company intersects with their greater fascination with the Southwest. “New Mexico is very different from where we live,” Ball says. “The colors, the atmosphere … so much of the Harvey story takes place here.”

One Albuquerque woman mentions her affinity for the silver jewelry the Harvey Company commissioned from local Native artisans for their souvenir shops. Another guest is interested in how Harvey’s Indian Detours of the 1920s and ’30s helped shape New Mexico’s tourism industry. (The motor tours were guided by women “couriers” dressed in Navajo-inspired costumes, who took travelers to visit pueblos and other scenic and historical sites in the Southwest.) A museum employee pipes in that he’s most excited to try the food and cocktails that take inspiration from old Harvey House menus. “Everyone has different interests within the larger Harvey world,” says Klug, who has made several conference presentations on Harvey hotel architecture and interiors. “That draws us all into conversation.”

For Billie Mathews, a professor at Luna Community College in the original Las Vegas, Harvey’s legacy hits close to home. Her grandfather worked on the railroad. “Growing up in Las Vegas in the sixties, it was a big deal to visit the Kachina Room at the Sunport,” she says of the now-gone Harvey dining room in the Albuquerque airport. “I can still close my eyes and see the lamps and decor.”

Mathews laments the destruction of other local Harvey properties, including the Mission Revival–style Alvarado Hotel, in Albuquerque, which met a wrecking ball in 1970. In her hometown, the Castañeda Hotel sat abandoned for 50 years. “We used to call it the Nasty Casty,” she remembers of the neglected property. “It’s really nice to see that it’s finally been remodeled and that we have a place to eat in Harvey elegance again,” Mathews says of the hotel’s Trackside restaurant. “People are starting to embrace our gems a lot more.”

AT THE FOODIE DINNER AND AUCTION, I meet Allan Affeldt, the hotel entrepreneur responsible for the Castañeda’s renovation and reopening five years ago. “Nobody wanted it,” he says, over little orange pancakes topped with smoked salmon, caviar, and citrus mustard sauce. “It was just too difficult, too complicated, too expensive.”

Affeldt and his wife, Tina Mion, purchased the 1898 Mission Revival–style building in 2010. “I wasn’t particularly interested in the hotel business,” says Affeldt, whose trust nonetheless also owns La Posada, the former Harvey House in Winslow, Arizona; and the historic Plaza Hotel across town from the Castañeda, in Las Vegas. “I’m drawn to the architecture and design of historic buildings, and Harvey’s were meticulous. The destruction of the Alvarado in 1970 really sparked the whole movement for historic rehabilitation in the Southwest,” he says. “With the Castañeda, we didn’t want that to happen again. It was just so extraordinarily beautiful.”

The Castañeda Hotel reopened in 2019 with Harvey-period furniture, a refurbished brick facade, and a cozy dining room to serve a new generation of weary travelers. The hotel’s unveiling was soon followed by the reopening of another of Affeldt’s local projects: the Legal Tender Saloon & Eating House across from the depot in Lamy. The 1881 building once sat across from Harvey’s El Ortiz Hotel, which was demolished in 1943. Both the Castañeda and the Legal Tender are popular Fredhead pilgrimage sites, further cementing New Mexico’s dominance as the epicenter of Harvey’s enduring empire.

“What motivates me and my team to take on these ‘impossible projects’ and bring them back to life are the people who will be able to visit them,” Affeldt says. “It’s not that we’re tied to the past, but that the past roots us to what’s possible in the present.”

As the evening winds down, I look around the busy ballroom filled with Fredheads laughing and clinking champagne flutes. Here, it’s evident that the past can certainly foster community in the present. “The people you meet are the heartbeat of the weekend,” Fried tells me later. “The lectures are interesting. The food is amazing. But what we really have here is a family that has grown out of this thing.

Read more: Come to the Belén Harvey House Museum hungry for history—and dessert. ​