Harvey Girls

Civilizing the West

 In 1876, an enterprising young man named Fred Harvey saw an opportunity to make a name for himself by providing decent meals for rail travelers at decent prices. As it was, travelers were at the mercy of locals at water stops, who preyed on them by selling sandwiches and fruit at exorbitant prices. Since there were no dining cars back then, a passenger had to either go hungry or go broke!

Eventually, Fred opened Harvey House restaurants along railroad lines, providing filling meals at honest prices. He even had refrigerated rail cars for fresh meat and produce to his diners. He also provided meal services on the trains when the railroads opened dining cars and opened a few hotels for train travelers. It's believed that "blue plate specials" began at the Harvey House because meals were served on blue patterned china. Additionally, he offered larger pieces of pie, having them divided in four pieces instead of six.

Besides the excellent meals in his restaurants and clean hotel rooms, what made the Harvey Houses a success were the employees. Harvey wanted his dining service to be as high quality as his meals. He placed ads in newspapers for "single, well-mannered, educated, young women, 18-30 years of age of good character" to apply to be a Harvey Girl. Her salary would be $18.50 a month (generous for that period) plus room and board. She would be required to sign a contract that stated she would be employed at Harvey House for a period of six months. Should she leave before that time, she would forfeit half her salary. She would be expected to wear the Harvey Girl uniform and have a curfew of 10 p.m. Uniforms were starched black and white dresses and aprons with sensible shoes and a white ribbon to tie back her hair. She must wear no cosmetics or chew gum.

Girls often left before their six-month employment to marry, which isn't surprising. After all, these were industrious young women. They'd have to be to travel from their (mostly) back East homes to the wild west to embark on an independent life where they didn't know a soul. However, since they were of good character, educated, adventurous, and served delicious food, they were very attractive to men. Humorist Will Rogers said that they helped civilize the west and he was probably right.

Judy Garland starred in a film about the Harvey Girls, sparking renewed attention to them. Harvey Houses still exist today. I visited one in Hugo, Oklahoma at the old Fisco depot. The food was tasty and the atmosphere was fascinating. I couldn't help but imagine what it would have been like to be a Harvey Girl. Of course, the writer in me couldn't resist and so I wrote a book with a Harvey Girl heroine ("Tough Talk, Tender Kisses") and I had so much fun researching and writing that one! She was the "senior girl" or house mother in charge of the other girls and she took her job very seriously.

If you ever get the chance to stop in at one of the remaining Harvey Houses -- the most famous one is La Posada in Winslow, AZ -- be sure and do so. There are still quite a few scattered across the west and while the restrictions on the servers no longer apply, the food is still a good bargain.

Colorado Springs & William Jackson Palmer ~ Julie Lence

 

William Jackson Palmer
Colorado Springs Gazette

Being an east coast girl from upstate New York, one would think hubby and I would’ve retired to our hometown to be close to our families, but we didn’t. Hubby spent twenty years in the Air Force and one of his assignments was Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs. We fell in love with the area and decided to make it home when he retired. In the past 18 years, Colorado Springs has boomed in population and business, and every day, weather permitting, I get to see America’s Mountain.

Pikes Peak
Pinterest

Long before Army lieutenant and explorer Zebulon Pike traveled through the area and discovered the mountain that is now his namesake, Pike’s Peak, the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes called the area at the bottom of what is now Ute Pass home. It was Pike’s wish to summit the peak to map out rivers and the landscape, but feet of snow prevented him from doing so. He published an account of his travels in 1810 naming the mountain, Grand Peak, thus putting it on the map. Fast forward a few years to when gold was discovered in the area and folks rushed to the region, where businessmen established Colorado Springs’ first settlement, Colorado City, at the base of the peak. (Situated west of where Colorado Springs currently sits and Manitou Springs, Colorado City is now known as Old Colorado City.) Colorado City became the hub for selling mining equipment and supplies to those headed up Ute Pass to pan for gold. For a short time, Colorado City was also a territorial capital.

Those looking to strike it rich in the mines weren’t the only people coming west to Colorado Spring’s first settlement. Many came for health reasons, hoping the fresh air and sunshine would cure tuberculosis, and others came for business opportunities, including Colorado Springs’ founding father, William Jackson Palmer. Born in Delaware on September 17, 1836 to a Quaker family, Palmer had a fascination with trains at a young age. He eventually hired on with the Pennsylvania railroad and learned everything he could about the railroad industry and engineering and was the first person to suggest trains should burn coal and not wood, since wood was fast becoming short in supply. Because of his teachings, the Pennsylvania Railroad was the first to use coal.

Vintage Map
Walmart

A man who loathed slavery, Palmer served as a general in the Civil War and won a Medal of Honor for heroic efforts. After the war, he financially supported education efforts for the freed slaves and ventured to the Kansas Railroad and helped lay the tracks all the way to Denver. He and his friend, Dr. William Bell, founded their own railroad company, the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. The first tracks went to the Pikes Peak. The area struck a chord deep inside Palmer and he predicted the foothills would become a booming resort town. Purchasing 10,000 acres of land along the train route, Palmer laid out streets, hauled in thousands of trees to make the city lush and green, and erected lavish buildings resembling European style, to include the Antler’s Hotel. In 1871, his Victorian resort town was born. From the start, Colorado Springs wasn’t a boom town. Palmer used the breathtaking scenery to lure the rich to the area, along with capitalists, artists and intellectuals. Gold was discovered to the west of the peak in Cripple Creek in 1891. More of the wealthy flocked to Colorado Springs and for a spell, the city had more millionaires per capita than any other location in the United States. 

Durango & Silverton RR
ASCE Library

In 1870, Palmer married Mary Lincoln (Queen) and the two enjoyed a honeymoon in the British Isles. It was there he saw and learned about the narrow gauge railroad. The narrow gauge was cheaper to build, could make sharper turns and climb steeper slopes, making it the perfect type of railroad for Palmer to incorporate throughout the state of Colorado to make travel through the Rocky Mountains easier. To date, two of his tracks remain in place; the 45 mile trek between Durango and Silverton in the southwest corner of Colorado, and the Cumbres and Toltec 63 mile trek between Chama, NM and Antonito, CO.    

Colorado Springs today
4word

Palmer went on to bring the railroad to Pueblo. He co-founded the Colorado Fuel and Iron company, and drove the ‘golden spike’ at the Promontory Summit in Utah to finishing America’s Transcontinental Railroad. He eventually retired to Colorado Springs where he helped to establish the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind, and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, before passing away March 1, 1909. A statue of him riding his favorite his horse,  Diablo, sits in the intersection of Nevada and Platte Avenue in Colorado Springs across from Palmer High School, which is named after him. 

General Palmer Statue
and high school 

All Aboard!

Dang, I always thought it would be fun to be a conductor for a day and it seems very appropriate to welcome everyone here since this will be the first post made by new participants in Cowboy Kisses. Every first Monday of the month, I'll be adding my wee bit of wisdom regarding the cowboy in addition to posts made by other wonderful authors of the genre.

That said, I thought it would be a hoot to open with trains. What - you say? No horses? No mules? You want to talk about trains? Oh yeah. I do. The cowboy did much to settle the old west. For most Americans, he's the ultimate hero because he paved the way for generations to come, but he had help.

Travelling across the country in a covered wagon was slow and dangerous. As soon as towns became connected by steel tracks, the migration of settlers exploded. Not only did the train help people populate the west, but it helped commerce by providing an easier way to haul goods from point A to point B, including cows. Just recently toured the coast and spent time in a small town called Fulton where our hotel overlooked the ruins of the Marion Packing Plant.

The railroad came to the coast around 1872. At first only processed meat would be sent to the East but later, small herds were put in cars or in the holds of ships as a means of getting fresher meat to buyers. Several years later, shipping cows via train would become more cost efficient than the arduous cattle drives. By the 1890s, only a few cowboys used drives as a method of moving the cows.

For me, the train has a romantic aura. I've ridden on one twice now. I traveled with my parent from Bryan, Texas to Midland, Texas when I was in Middle School. The length of the journey required that we spend the night on board. Oh my, now that was an experience. The cabins are very small. I slept on a top bunk, but the constant sway and clackety clack of the train lulled me to sleep. The second trip was made in November of 2005 when the George Bush Library offered an excursion to Dallas on a restored Union Pacific Train. Getting to experience the motion, speed, and smells associated with the train enhanced a scene I wrote for Once Jilted. Once Jilted is a Historical Western set in Indiana in which the heroine was once an orphan train rider.

They have a wonderful train museum in Galveston where I roamed several of the antique cars. Just imagine sleeping on these benches with no air conditioning.

Yeah, you have to agree, there's something fascinating about trains and the old west.