From Wikipedia:
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. 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, by the owners of the historic La Posada Hotel in Arizona. As of mid-2011, the project was on hold.
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El Garces Hotel was built in 1908 by the Santa Fe Railroad for the Fred Harvey Company. Architect Francis W. Wilson designed a neoclassical structure with Doric columns lining the ground floor
and ionic columns supporting the second story. The name El Garces was
chosen to honor Father Francisco Garces, a missionary who was the first European known to have crossed the Mojave Desert
The main entrance to the hotel faces the railroad tracks and rail
travelers were greeted by Mohave Indians dressed in colorful
skirts and shawls selling beaded jewelry, ceramic figures and
hand woven baskets.
The open air entry courtyard was built around an oval fountain.
This feature was later replaced with a news stand. Harvey Hotels were renowned for excellent food and service, and El Garces had an elegant restaurant and a lunch room that had three horseshoe lunch counters and hand glazed ceramic tile murals and mosaic tile floors.
The food was served by the famous Harvey Girls. Harvey placed adds in Eastern Newspapers seeking "Young women of good character, attractive and intelligent, 18 to 30, to work in Harvey Eating Houses in the West". One of the few respectable jobs a single woman could have in the West was the position of Harvey Girl, and the women were strictly supervised, living in Harvey dormitories complete with dorm mothers. With good food and Harvey Girl service, Fred Harvey built his hotel and restaurant empire. The postcard below shows the locations of a few of the hotels in the Fred Harvey chain.
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