Born in England in 1835, Fred Harvey immigrated to the US at the age of 17 and worked his way up from being a pot-scrubber in a restaurant in New York to starting the country’s first restaurant chain called Harvey Houses.
These establishments were situated along the Atichison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway route and catered to wealthy and middle-class visitors alike. Harvey was called the “civilizer of the West” for introducing high standards of hospitality at his many properties and after he died in 1901, his company prospered until the late 1960s.
This Fred Harvey dinner menu was used in the New Mexican Room in the historic La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was dated 1951 and reflected folk-art tradition, depicting life in a Mexican village and painted in soft, muted colors.
Though the roots of La Fonda go back 400 years, the current hotel was built in the 1920s. It has changed ownership several times since this menu was created and remains one of Santa Fe’s most cherished institutions, still welcoming travelers from all over the world.

Courtesy Private Collection.