Harvey, Frederick Henry (1835–1901)

As a successful entrepreneur of the late 1800s, Frederick Henry Harvey developed a legacy of elegant dining and hotel services that has lasted more than a century. Building up his business and reputation along the rails of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, Fred Harvey rose from immigrant dishwasher to consummate creator of a restaurant and hotel empire. Armed only with alpaca jackets and fine silver, Harvey earned the reputation of “civilizer of the West.” According to Harvey House Web master John [Page 293]Howell, “Where the grunt and growl of frontier barbarism had held sway, Fred Harvey endorsed a law of ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ Where the inhabitants had rooted about in a beans and bacon wilderness, he made the desert bloom with vintage claret and quail in aspic.” Like the enterprising businessmen described in historian David Dary's Entrepreneurs of the Old West, Harvey sought not the “wild and free outdoor life as many early pioneers appear to be doing in romantic historical myths.” Vanguard of elegant dining no matter the location, Harvey was “seeking profit, and in so doing [linked] the East with the West.” Western tourism fortified this bond between the coasts, as Harvey and the railroad advertisers merged their expertise to entice travelers to the Southwest.

Dary named these entrepreneurs the “silent army,” composed not of disciplined soldiers but “highly mobilized individuals, each seeking opportunity and profit in the American West.” Harvey saw his opportunity for prosperity in the restaurant field in replacing deplorable eating conditions with palatable options, and he demanded civilized behavior from those who wished to partake. The fundamental need for food gave Harvey the power to tame; the result was a chain of restaurants and a change of lifestyle that followed the Santa Fe Railway from the Missouri River deep into the West.

Three features contributed to Harvey's early success: exclusive contracts with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway; exquisite cuisine; and the handsome Harvey Girls. The combination created an unbeatable formula for fame, and the history of Harvey's restaurants and hotels stands as testament to the effect one man had on a region rampant with bad manners and worse food.

At the age of fifteen, London-born Harvey found work in New York City as a “pot wollaper” (dish-washer), his first experience in the restaurant field. From then on, the desire to own and manage his own restaurants drove him, and although several years passed and many failed attempts occurred before the Harvey Houses flourished, he never lost his desire for the fulfillment of his dream. From dishwasher to failed restaurant partnerships to being one of two of the first clerks to sort, pick up, and deliver mail through the Railway Post Office, Harvey made his way to New Orleans, St. Louis, and then Kansas. In 1865, Harvey made Leavenworth his home base as freight agent and General Western agent.

As a traveling railroad employee, Harvey observed and tasted the food fare offered in the West. Trains pulled into depots; their passengers departed in a rush and tried to down a meal in the twenty allotted minutes. Elbows jabbed and behinds jockeyed for too few seats. Beaneries (common names for eating houses) often served rancid bacon, unidentified meat stews, eggs preserved in lime, and coffee that had perhaps been made in the same week, perhaps not. If passengers did not have time to eat all the food, some proprietors scraped the plates into a stewpot for the next crowd. Wise passengers avoided these offerings altogether; brave ones chugged a bit of Irish whiskey before and after the meal to diminish gastronomic effects. Carrying picnics aboard the train was an option, but the cloying smell of days-old chicken tempted only mice and flies. Something had to be done, and Harvey was just the man for the job.

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