Fred Harvey Original Bookmarks - Union Station Fred Harvey Shops I bought a vintage 1920's book at a sale and found these 2 bookmarks
inside when I was going through the book so these are not reproductions. These vintage Fred Harvey Shops book marks are in a deco style in gold and black. They have the phone number, the states where the restaurants and shops were located... only in Union Stations and on the back it indicates that these are from Kansas City. The back also lists the types of stores Fred Harvey has. This is an early piece because the only locations listed on the front are Chicago, Cleveland,
St. Louis and Kansas City. Amazing pieces of vintage ephemera. The first Harvey House started up in 1876 in the train depot in Topeka, Kansas. Then throughout the 1880s and 1890s at about 100-mile intervals along the Santa Fe Route from Chicago west. There were Harvey Houses through Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico to Arizona and California. The breakfast that patrons got for 50 cents before the turn of the century included cereal or fruit, eggs on top of
thick, juicy steaks with hash brown potatoes on the side and a stack of six large hot cakes swimming in butter and maple syrup, topped off with apple pie and coffee. Fred Harvey became infamous for hiring young women from the East coast to come out west and work as waiters, hosts and shop attendants in his hotels. These women became known as the "Harvey Girls."
Dinner menus for 75 cents were bountiful and always with a fancy gourmet dish or wild game, served with a
smile by the Harvey girls.
One of Harvey's most sacred regulations was his well known "coat rule." From his earliest days it was accepted that all dining room men patrons should wear dinner jackets. To ensure that no one was turned away because of improper dress, a supply of dark alpaca coats was always kept on hand. For nearly half a century Americans ranging from gunmen to Presidents obeyed the rule.
An irreverent legend has it that when Fred Harvey died in 1901
at the age of 66 his last words were: "Don't cut the ham too thin."
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