A Cronkite News Service Weekend Special
RAILROAD COMMUNITY TRIES TO SAVE HISTORIC, DECAYING HARVEY HOTEL
NOTE: This story moved Thursday, Nov. 1. We recommend it for weekend use.
Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 (thumbnails, captions below)
By SONU MUNSHI
Cronkite News Service
SELIGMAN _ Angel Delgadillo remembers when train passengers in suits and silk promenaded into the Havasu Hotel to relax and dine in luxury.
With the finest crystal and china, immaculately polished silverware and a menu featuring delicacies such as chestnut spaghetti and marsala scallopini, the Fred Harvey hotel was a magnet for travelers and the pride of this community on historic Route 66.
“It was our crowning jewel,” said Delgadillo, who often joined other Seligman residents witnessing who was dropping by the hotel.
Today, the Havasu Hotel stands behind a chain-link fence that protects it from vandals. Most of its windows are broken, and the wiring and plumbing are gone, as are the fixtures. Its grounds, once manicured lawns, are now dirt with patches of wild grass.
The hotel’s owner, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, has said it plans to tear down the two-story building, though it hasn’t set a date. That’s left some members of the community scrambling to save the hotel.
The railroad is willing to donate the building to the community, but it intends to keep the land for an as-yet undetermined use, said Lena Kent, a company spokeswoman.
Individuals are studying the possibility of moving and restoring the hotel, also known here as the Havasu Harvey. Others are waging online campaigns to call attention to the hotel’s plight.
“People drive by our town and many don’t even notice this rich piece of history,” said Mary Clurman, who blogs about the hotel and is trying to find grant money to save it. “It’d be tragic to see it fall by the wayside.”
The Havasu Hotel is one of four surviving Arizona hotels built by entrepreneur Fred Harvey, who won fame for building more than 80 hotels, restaurants, lunch rooms and newsstands along the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad between Chicago and Los Angeles.
Spread mainly across Arizona, New Mexico, California and Kansas, many of the Harvey properties are now abandoned and in disrepair. The El Tovar on the Grand Canyon’s South Rim and the restored La Posada Hotel in Winslow are examples of Harvey hotels that have been preserved. A Harvey hotel in Williams now houses offices and a gift shop for the Grand Canyon Railway.
“If you really wanted to be something and know more about the West, you’d take the train and stay at the Harvey hotel,” said Kathleen L. Howard, a historian who co-authored a book about the Harvey chain.
The Havasu Hotel had about 60 rooms and a restaurant, a lunch counter, a bar and a reading room.
It’s been closed for decades, though Harvey historians aren’t sure exactly when it shut down. John Fitzgerald, former vice president of the Seligman Historical Society, thinks it was the early 1950s. The railroad stopped using the building in 1989.
Delgadillo fondly recalls the Havasu Hotel’s “Harvey Girls,” waitresses known for their starched, black-and-white uniforms and elegant manner.
“It’s not like walking into a restaurant today, somebody in shorts, someone else wearing a dress,” Delgadillo said. “At Harvey House it was uniform, it was dignity, it was yesterday.”
Josie Lopez, who now works as a cashier at a Seligman restaurant, was a Harvey Girl in the mid-1940s, serving troops on trains that stopped here. She said it’s sad to see the hotel these days.
“It would be a shame if it disappeared altogether,” Lopez said.
The hotel is an important piece of railroad and tourism history, said Vince Murray, former president of the Arizona Preservation Foundation, which this year placed the Havasu Hotel on its list of endangered sites.
“It can be a driving force in bringing back tourists to Seligman in a big way,” Murray said.
The Seligman Historical Society has talked with the railroad about taking ownership of the building, but the organization lacks the money to move or restore the hotel, Fitzgerald said.
“Rehabilitating it and moving it would cost millions, which we don’t have,” Fitzgerald said.
Some individuals are proposing their own ideas for saving the Havasu Hotel.
Frank Kocevar, owner of Seligman Sundries, a coffee bar and gift shop in a historic building, said he is negotiating with the railroad to buy the hotel and restore it on land he owns nearby.
“I want to see life in that building _ perhaps as a museum, so people could see a piece of Seligman,” Kocevar said. “It’s a classic building. It would be hard to replace.”
Lake Havasu City resident Don Gray wants to save the Havasu Hotel because his grandparents met there when his grandmother worked as a Harvey Girl. He recently helped coordinate a study that determined the building is sound enough to be moved, and he’s quick to show tourists his grandparents’ pictures of the hotel.
“It’s a peek into my past, my history,” Gray said. “How can it just all go?”
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Web Links:
_ Mary Clurman’s Blog: seligmanharveyhouse.blogspot.com
_ Harvey Houses: www.harveyhouses.net
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PHOTOS: Click thumbnails to see full-resolution images and download.
HARVEY HOTEL
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-HARVEY HOTEL: Angel Delgadillo stands next to what remains of Seligman’s Havasu Hotel, one of four surviving Harvey hotels in Arizona. Delgadillo, 80, remembers when he and other Seligman residents would head to the hotel to witness who was getting off the train there. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway has announced it plans to tear down the unused building to put the land to another use. Some area residents and the local historical society have talked to the railroad about moving the building to another site and restoring it, but a lack of funds has stymied efforts thus far. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Sonu Munshi)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-HARVEY HOTEL: The Havasu Hotel in Seligman, one of four surviving Harvey hotels in Arizona, once featured a manicured lawn, but today the unused, delaying building sits amid dirt and patches of wild grass, surrounded by a chain link fence. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway has announced it plans to tear down the unused building to put the land to another use. Some area residents and the local historical society have talked to the railroad about moving the building to another site and restoring it, but a lack of funds has stymied efforts thus far. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Sonu Munshi)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-HARVEY HOTEL: A chain-link fence surrounds the Havasu Hotel in Seligman, one of four surviving Harvey hotels in Arizona. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway has announced it plans to tear down the unused building to put the land to another use. Some area residents and the local historical society have talked to the railroad about moving the building to another site and restoring it, but a lack of funds has stymied efforts thus far. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Sonu Munshi)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-HARVEY HOTEL: Don Gray of Lake Havasu City shows pictures of his grandparents, who met at the Havasu Hotel in Seligman. Gray is among those trying to save the abandoned and decaying Harvey hotel, which Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway intends to tear down. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Sonu Munshi)
CAPTION FOR BC-CNS-HARVEY HOTEL: Josie Lopez, who now works as a restaurant cashier, fondly remembers working as a “Harvey Girl” at Seligman’s Havasu Hotel, one of four surviving Harvey hotels in Arizona. Harvey Girls, waitresses in Harvey restaurants, were famed for their crisp uniforms and professional manner. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway has announced it plans to tear down the unused and decaying Havasu Hotel and put the land to another use. Some area residents and the local historical society have talked to the railroad about moving the building to another site and restoring it, but a lack of funds has stymied efforts thus far. (Cronkite News Service Photo/Sonu Munshi)