By Kay Lauster
Fred Harvey became a restaurant entrepreneur as a young man, beginning with his arrival in New York City from London in 1853. In New York he worked in a variety of restaurant jobs. Moving west, he opened the first of his own restaurants in St. Louis, MO. He developed his connection with the Santa Fe Railroad through various entrepreneurial ventures, with the railroad building restaurants and hotels and Fred supplying the furnishings and food service and running them and managing their operations, along with the railroad dining cars, along the Santa Fe line from Chicago to Los Angeles. As the Santa Fe Railroad moved west, so did Harvey’s ideas.