Railroad History from River Valley Pioneer Museum

A History of Hemphill County and the City of Canadian is the story of the railroad in the Texas Panhandle. H.Y. Wilson engineered the first train, engine 299, into Canadian, thus beginning a way of life which would effect the city of Canadian for more than 50 years. With the railroad came the Depot, Harvey House, Roundhouse, Santa Fe Reading Room, and a population of citizens. The historic Wagon Bridge (now the scenic walking bridge) was the largest steel construction west of the Mississippi after its construction in 1916. This bridge and the railroad bridge would bring the goods needed for the thriving new town. The museum now has many artifacts from the railroad on display. Including the old station bench, railroad timetable, flashlights, and many other smaller items.

The region known as the Texas Panhandle-isolated, known for its sandstorms, mirages, sweeping prairie fires and rolling, treeless plains, and once home to thousands of buffalo- always had an aura of romance that linked it more to the southwest than the Midwest it resembles. It was already established cattle country in the 1880's; the Santa Fe saw the market and business potential of this beef and farm area and begin laying track toward a little known settlement called Canadian, on the Canadian River, in 1886.

This country was a true cowboy's paradise, with hundreds of miles of open prairie called the "Llano Estacado". Settlers and the railroad meant one thing to the ranchers: fences and dividing up of grazeland. Like all cattle country, it was a rough area; the Panhandle even had its own Boot Hill cemetery in Tascosa on the Canadian River. Like their Kansas counterparts, those buried here had died because of their love of the six-shooter; but at this Boot Hill, unlike the one in Dodge City, a man was buried well beneath the surface of the ground and given a marker with the Lone Star of Texas carved in stone.

Canadian was initially a stop on the first stage lines because there was a shallow crossing spot in the Canadian River nearby. The area surrounding Canadian is reminiscent of the terrain found to the west in New Mexico- large cottonwood trees and dry, angular mesas. After the railroad arrived and built a bridge across the same spot, the town grew quickly, with wooden buildings, town lots, and streets replacing the dugouts and tents. The 1880's brought a saloon, a mercantile store, a press, a barber shop, a blacksmith, and a hardware store. Canadian was on its was to becoming one of the important cities in the Panhandle. Even so, Canadian never suffered the rowdiness of other boom towns, even when oil was discovered in the plains nearby. It was always a civilized place, and the Santa Fe rewarded the community by expanding its facilities in the early 1900's, making Canadians certain their town would soon rival Amarillo as the beef capitol of the Texas Panhandle.

Santa Fe Railroad

A History of Hemphill County and the City of Canadian is the story of the railroad in the Texas Panhandle. H.Y. Wilson engineered the first train, engine 299, into Canadian, thus beginning a way of life which would effect the city of Canadian for more than 50 years. With the railroad came the Depot, Harvey House, Roundhouse, Santa Fe Reading Room, and a population of citizens that is still growing in numbers. The historic Wagon Bridge (now the scenic walking bridge) was the largest steel construction west of the Mississippi after its construction in 1916. This bridge and the railroad bridge would bring the goods needed for the thriving new town. The museum now has many artifacts from the railroad on display. Including the old station bench, railroad timetable, flashlights, and many other smaller items.

Santa Fe Depot

The brick Fe Depot was completed in 1907. It was situated at the foot of main street. It stood eighty feet long by twenty-four feet wide. The platforms extended three hundred feet from Main street to Purcell Avenue. Men working on passenger trains and traffic signals reported here.

Santa Fe Reading Room

Located on the south end of town, the Santa Fe Reading Room served as a boarding house for men working on the trains. The two story building was marked by a large veranda and a beautiful lawn. One end of the main floor housed a manager and his family while the opposite end served as a yard office for freight trains. The Reading Room was noted for the cultural programs sponsored in Canadian. They brought outstanding entertainers such as comedians, musicians, poets, and singers to the community. These monthly affairs were presented free to railroaders and townspeople.

Roundhouse

After the brick Depot and Harvey House were completed, work began on the Roundhouse in 1907. The Santa Fe roundhouse suffered tremendous loss in Hemphill County. In 1908 the newly built roundhouse was destroyed by fire. Eleven locomotives and an oil tanker were lost at an estimated cost of $125,000.00. The structure was rebuilt only to be destroyed by fire again on April 12, 1951. The purpose of the roundhouse was for locomotive storage and locomotive maintenance. The turntable at the roundhouse was used to either switch engines or to rotate the engine in a different direction. The Canadian Roundhouse had approximately 8 locomotive storage stalls and a night watchman called a hosuler. After the second roundhouse fire, the Santa Fe did not rebuild.

The Harvey House

The Santa FE announced its intention to construct a Harvey House next to the Santa Fe Depot in 1909: "Great is the Santa Fe," the Canadian Record of October 7, 1909, stated, "and we are proud to be on its line." The new Santa Fe buildings by the tracks were completely destroyed by fire in 1910, but the Santa Fe was undaunted by this setback, and after replacing them, continued construction of the Harvey House. The Harvey House cost the railroad $36,000, and its presence meant trains would stop for the first time for meals in Canadian. The Record told it readers: "...more traffic will be sent this way. In the near future a California train will pass through Canadian, but not without stopping."

The Harvey House was a two-story brick structure by the track, connected to the depot with covered walkways. It did not have any hotel accommodations, but had a dining room and a lunch room, with employee bedrooms on the second floor. "The most substantially built structure in the town," the Harvey House was part of a planned system of Harvey Houses that promised to bring additional passenger traffic through this division of the Santa Fe. Canadians recognized the Santa Fe's influence in shaping their community.

Canadians old enough to remember say that most Harvey Girls at the house were local women. A few were sent in, especially to get the house opened and on its feet. The manager, chef, and baker were never from the area, but many local women found work there over the years at the Canadian Harvey dining room and lunch counter.

At the age of 15, Fred Harvey left his native England for the United States. Upon his arrival in New York City, Mr. Harvey began working in the restaurant business. The Civil war was bad for restaurants but good for the railroad, and Mr. Harvey made a career change. Over the next 20 years, Mr. Harvey moved ever westward and even higher in railroad business, but never forgot his restaurant beginnings. Traveling for the railroads over the time enforced Mr. Harvey's view that improvement was needed in the food department.

Upon arrival in Kansas in 1870, Mr. Harvey met Charlie Moorse, President of the fledgling Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. For the next near century, Fred Harvey's company would bring good food at reasonable prices in clean, elegant, restaurants, to the traveling public in the southwest. They also brought civilization, community, and industry to the Wild West. A short 15 years later, there were 17 Harvey Houses; at their peak, there were 84!

He began hiring women at a time when most jobs for women were as domestics or teachers. His own experience with the men that he had hired were as wild as the west was. He advertised in the East for women to work for him. Paying as much as $17.50 per month with free room, board, and clean uniforms. The company prospered with these new helpers. Each girl signed a 1 year contract not to marry. Advertisements for Harvey Girls read "young women of good character, attractive, intellegent, 18 - 30 years old." They attended a special training corps where they were taught personal grooming and the art of serving food with elegance.

The Harvey House in Canadian, Texas opened in 1910, and closed in 1939. A few of the original Harvey girls are still residents in this wonderfully historic town, Rachel Kelly and Alice Garnas.
Canadian owes a lot of its life to the railroad and to the Fred Harvey Company, without which this thriving community may not have become
what it is today.

The following are some of the Harvey House employees that became Canadian residents:
Elizabeth Alice Garnas 1909, Yugoslavia Harvey Girl, NM, 1926-1929
Warren Harrington Busboy,Canadian, TX 1929-1932
Elizabeth Hazelwood 1897 Harvey Girl, Canadian, TX 1926-1939
Rachel Kelly Oklahoma Harvey Girl, Canadian, TX 1927
Una Gertrude Atchison Matthews Texas Harvey Girl, Canadian, TX 1925

Harvey House Employees

Elizabeth Hazelwood

Elizabeth Hazelwood was a first generation American when she was brought by her parents to Oklahoma in a covered wagon in 1899. She was two years old and her father, a Russian immigrant, had come with his family from South Dakota to try farming farther south. He moved the family on to Texas from Oklahoma, hearing "it was rich down there", but found, like thousands of others, that this was mostly false advertising. The family farmed outside Canadian, Texas but it was a terrible struggle, and soon the four girls and one boy had all moved into town to find work. Elizabeth married when she was eighteen and had two children before she was widowed ten years later. She was supporting her family as a cafe waitress in Canadian when she heard there was a better job at the Harvey House.

There were few Harvey Girls sent in from other Harvey Houses to the small lunch and dining room in Canadian. Many local married women were hired to work in the 1920's and 1930's, and they were allowed to maintain their own homes. Single women were still required to live in the Harvey House Girl dormitory.

For a widow with small children, the job offered security and a much needed extended family. Elizabeth's daughter, Sis, remembers her visits to the Harvey House every day after school when she and her brother waited for their mother to leave work.

Elizabeth remembers worrying about her small children because of the proximity of the Harvey House to the railroad tracks, and the busy rush when a train came in. She claims she never took a vacation, and she doesn't remember travel passes being offered to the local Harvey Girls. "It was just a good clean job for a woman. It was very strenuous, but a clean woman, a woman who didn't smoke, curse, or drink, could get a good job if she could keep up with the work.

Elizabeth Alice Garnas

Elizabeth Alice Garnas was born in Austria in 1909. Her father was a coal miner working for a German company that sent him to work in the Gibson, New Mexico mines. In 1911, Alice's family joined him in New Mexico, but soon after were forced to leave Gibson when her father lost his arm in a mining accident. Alice attended a few years of high school in Albuquerque before being told it was time to leave school and find work to help support the family.

At the age of seventeen, Alice went to work as a maid in Albuquerque. The woman of the house was a former Harvey Girl who suggested Alice go downtown to the Alvarado, The Harvey House, to talk with the supervisor about becoming a Harvey Girl. Alice knew nothing about Harvey, but she wanted a better job. After an interview and application placed at the Alvarado offices, Alice was offered a job in Vaughn, on the eastern plains of New Mexico.

Vaughn was a railroad terminal and division piont, and most of the people living in the community were railroad people. There were also cowboys and ranchers in town each day on horseback and on wagons. It was 1926 when Alice arrived, and although it was dusty, isolated, and small, Alice loved Vaughn and her new life as a Harvey Girl.

Local ranchers were regulars at the Harvey House lunch counter, especially as the cooking skills of the German chef and baker gained a wide reputation. The prices were reasonable, and even in the middle of the hot New Mexico summer there was homemade ice cream. There was no competition for service, food, or price for hundreds of miles.

Charles Lindbergh inadvertently found himself at the Vaughn Harvey House in 1926. He was forced to land his plane on the desert near town because of engine failure. With his mechanic, he waited several days for parts and assistance in the hotel across the street from the Harvey House, taking all his meals in the Harvey House Dining Room. "The town just went plum crazy," Alice remembered.

Alice's father died and she returned to Albuquerque to help settle family affairs. As soon as her obligations at home were completed, she returned to the Alvarado and asked for another job. Alice was sent down south to Belen, New Mexico, where she became reacquainted with a railroadman she had know before in Vaughn. They married in 1929.

Warren Harrington

In the 1920's, the depot at Canadian was bustling with two to four meal trains stopping each day. Before the roads were paved, all of the county's wheat and livestock were shipped out from the depot. Warren Harrington worked summers as a busboy at the Canadian Harvey House. "I was responsible for spotting the trains and alerting the chef and the girls. I'd stand out on the platform where I could see up the tracks about four miles. With the first glimpse of the train, I would run back and report to the chef, then I would grab this big brass gong and whack the daylights out of it with s wood stick with a ball on the end of it. I really gave it a working over. Inside, everything went into gear but quick!" In the following thirty minutes, the Canadian cooks and Harvey Girls served upwards of eighty passengers.

Warren's brothers and sisters also worked for Harvey. His brothers both became chefs and worked all over the line, including the Grand Canyon hotels. Two of his sisters were Harvey Girls, both of whom married Santa Fe engineers. Besides alerting the dining and lunchroom staff of the approaching train, Warren, dressed in black also served the black railroadmen their meal: "When everyone was inside, I went in and served the colored porters and conductors in an alcove that was just for them. They weren't allowed in the lunchroom in those days."

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River Valley Pioneer Museum
rvmuseum@cebridge.net
PO Box 1201
118 N. 2nd
Canadian, TX 79014
(806) 323-6548

Hours of operation:
Tuesday - Friday 9am - 12 noon, 1pm - 4pm
Saturdays, May through Mid-October, 1pm - 3pm