The La Posada Historic District preserves and protects the La Posada hotel complex, One of Mary Colter's finest buildings, and a true jewel of the American passenger rail era.
The La Posada Historic District is located at 200 East Second St in Winslow, Arizona. It is composed of four contributing structures and 1 non-contributing structure. La Posada is a must-experience when in Winslow AZ. The next time we are out this way, Daddy Blaster has promised Mama Blaster we will stay at least one night here. :)
From the National Park Service website: (
visit link)
"Built in 1929, the 11-acre grounds, hotel, and train station that make up La Posada Historic District are, in their own right, historic. . . .
[Colter] designed Mission Revival buildings with adobe walls, complete with niches for saints, roofs of red terra cotta, and windows with wooden shutters and iron rejas (grilles). Floors were flagstone, and exposed ceiling beams were covered with branches to simulate indigenous adobe construction. There were period maids’ costumes and dinner china, vigas (protruding wooden beams) beneath the gables, wrought-iron railings on the stairways, clay tiles on the chimneys, sand-blasted planks on the doors, and a wishing well in the garden. . . .
...La Posada was the result of an ingenious turn-of-the-century partnership between the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad (ATSF) and the Fred Harvey Company. ... 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 ... 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 100,000 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 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. Tourism expanded from an endeavor possible only for the wealthy into something that people of more moderate income also enjoyed. Correspondingly, these new tourists sought out modest accommodations. Declining numbers of travelers arrived at the train station attached to the hotel, and, despite a 1940s boost due to railroad shipments of troops entering the Second World War, La Posada ultimately failed. . . . Disrepair and neglect were taking a toll when the complex was listed in the National Register in 1992.
Fortunately, in 1997, new owners purchased La Posada and began restoration of one of the country’s great architectural treasures. That work continues today. The gardens are back, guest rooms are open, and fireplaces, faux-adobe walls, arched ceilings, and period furnishings await the visitor. (Also, cuisine continues to be an emphasis at La Posada—its restaurant is award winning!) La Posada has begun another “life.” Counting the history Mary Colter invented, that makes three. "