As the number of trains operated by Santa Fe and other railroads shrank, the number of hotels and restaurants operated by Fred Harvey also shrank. An ad in yesterday’s 1956 timetable lists ten hotels and restaurants along the Santa Fe route. Today’s only lists nine.
Click image to download a 34.2-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.
The missing hotel is the El Navajo in Gallup, New Mexico. Santa Fe began planning this hotel in 1914, but by the time it opened in 1918, the world was at war and it mainly served wartime traffic for its first few years. After the war, the hotel served tourists until 1957 when it was demolished to make room for a wider Route 66. Continue reading