Fred Harvey

Frederick Henry Harvey (June 27, 1835–February 9, 1901) was an entrepreneur who developed the Harvey House lunch rooms, restaurants, souvenir shops, and hotels, which served rail passengers on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the Gulf Coast and Santa Fe Railway, the Kansas Pacific Railway, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, and the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. His partnership with the Santa Fe began in 1876 after a failed 3 year business venture with another partner. At its peak, there were 84 Harvey Houses, all of which catered to wealthy and middle-class visitors alike. They continued to be built and operated into the 1960s. Harvey was the head of the Fred Harvey Company, which operated the hotel and restaurant chain under the leadership of his sons and grandson Nick Harvey until 1968 when it was sold to the Hawaii-based conglomerate Amfac, Inc.

Fred Harvey in The Two Georges
Fred Harvey and his sons continued to expand the business from railroads to airships while maintaining quality. By the end of the Twentieth Century, Fred Harvey gourmet food service was as much a selling feature as was the fast, efficient service provided by liners of the sky such as the Upper California Limited