An English immigrant named Fred Harvey began serving meals to railroad passengers on the Great Plains almost 150 years ago. Since then, the “Harvey Houses” he established remain a byword for both good food and a vanished age of rail travel.
But where did all those ingredients for the hotels and dining cars come from?
One answer lies in Chino Valley. Beginning in 1913, a bustling farm near Del Rio Springs began provisioning Fred Harvey restaurants in and around northern Arizona. Farm managers took advantage of the so-called Peavine Railway that linked Prescott and Chino Valley with the Santa Fe’s mainline at Ash Fork.
The farm employed dozens of workers. They ran a large dairy and poultry operation that shipped milk, cream and eggs to Harvey restaurants, including those on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Farm-grown grains and alfalfa sustained dairy cows onsite as well as Grand Canyon mules. In November and December, thousands of holiday turkeys were shipped out, while many of the working mules came south to winter at the farm.
In the 1950s, most Harvey Houses closed down, and the farm was sold into private ownership. It changed hands several times. But earlier this year, the Town of Chino Valley announced that it had purchased 23 acres of the old farm with the help of the Trust for Public Land.
The land is slated to become part of a much larger state park protecting Del Rio Springs and the headwaters of the Verde River — and a slice of northern Arizona’s hospitality history.
This Earth Note was written by Peter Friederici and produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.
