Seligman, AZ – The Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway plans to demolish the Havasu Harvey House in Seligman.
BSNF spokesperson Lena Kent confirmed the plans, but added that no timetable is in place. “Not this year, and we don’t even know if it will be in 2008 yet,” she told the Arizona Republic newspaper in mid-September.
Prospects of the demonstration have ignited a flurry of protests and concerns on the Route 66 e-group Yahoo site and in other sectors.
Don Gray [photo credit above], whose grandparents met while working at the Havasu Harvey House in 1915, wrote that he is seeking help in trying to save the structure. He urged people to write to BNSF officials as well as state and federal elected officials to build support for saving the Harvey House.
“The clock is ticking and time is running out,” Gray wrote.
Gray said he talked to Seligman and Route 66 civic leader Angel Delgadillo. “He advised me that there will be a meeting in Kingman soon to try and work on a solution for federal money that has been allocated for this kind of thing.”
“The word from Angel is that $10 million was allocated for these kind of projects but to date only $2 million has been distributed,” he said.
The Havasu closed in 1984 and the interior was gutted, Mary Clurman, of Seligman, told the Arizona Republic. She said an informal group called the Friends of Havasu has located three potential investors and hopes at least part of the property can be restored.
In its heyday, the two-story restaurant and hotel had 60,000 square feet and more than 50 rooms [and looked like the photo below].
If the interior was gutted a while ago, it’s going to be more difficult to get funds for preservation since all that’s really there is a shell. Restoration of the interior would be a lot more expensive and would take a lot more reasearch to get it right.
Working for a company that is trying to get allocated funds by definition that means that the government would spend the money if they had it. Allocated doesn’t mean funded it means they need to find a way to pay for it. That’s why only two million has been distributed.
At one point in the mid 1980’s it was Harvey House 3, Demolition Contractors 0 [swg]
Boom on the first wrecking crane was broken (along with the wrecking ball)…They discovered that the reinforced concrete structure had been beefed up with scrap 33 foot long pieces of 66# rail…[(-D][(-D][(-D]
…Thanks M C…That’s pretty funny. They must have wanted that one to last. I mentioned the heat in my last post. Back in '69 and '70, we were running automotive tests in the area and got into Needles and stopped to get a cold drink and remember a big thermometer under a palm tree outside the cafe was indicating 120 degrees…Warm.
Sad news, but the Seligman house is in pretty bad shape. Would require mega funds to bring it back to anything livable. And not the greatest location either. Fairly far from I-40, and not much around it…unlike La Posada in Winslow. Route 66 is there, but not much else. It used to be a stop for Amtrak. This ended in 1984. Still will be sad to see it go. It has very unique architecture when compared to the other remaining Harvey Houses.
Needles hot? I’ve been there when it was 125 [xx(]…at that point you don’t care if it’s a dry heat or not. I think it was in July of 05 if I remember right. Trying to get some popsicles at a local market (Bashas), my shoes melted to the pavement. And not just sticking, but actually melted. That was a first. Hottest weather I’ve been through yet, and living in Southern California it can get hot…just not Needles hot.
People here have a natural tendency to encourage throwing millions of dollars of taxpaper money at old railway structures for historical preservation, but sometimes a more pragmatic study of the situation might be in order.
Seligman is too far off the beaten path and too small a town to have any attractions that would encourage drivers to leave the Interstate, and no Amtrak trains stop in Seligman. Putting emotions aside, is this building really worth millions of dollars?
Let’s face reality. For every 100 people who might get off I-40 at Seligman, how many do you suppose have ever heard of Fred Harvey, a Harvey House, or the Harvey Girls? Unless they have watched the Judy Garland movie about the Harvey Girls on Turner Classic Movies they probably have no idea what a Harvey House was. Harvey Houses were all closed prior to World War II, although some were reopened temporarily during the war to serve troop trains. People who have no interest in railroad history probably couldn’t care less about an old Harvey House.
Moving the structure away from the railroad tracks would destroy its historical value.
calcole is probably correct on this one. It would be less expensive, I believe, to replicate it away from the track and along Route 66 two blocks away. The original plans are likely available. But would there be enough interest for it to succeed?
The rehab of the El Garces in Needles is being ‘supervised’ by the person ‘s’ who accomplished the very successful La Posada in Winslow. But as friend MC mentioned the El Garces was constructed much earlier than the La Posada with heavily reinforced concrete, and with the wiring and plumbing buried in the walls. Unlike the La Posada it has not had any recent use, however Mr. Allan Affeldt who is the principal for the La Posada project also has similar responsibilities in Needles.
YOU were REALLY there when it was 125 in Needles CA???
I remember watching the LIVE temperatures on the Weather Underground that day and seeing the LIVE Observation reading of 125. I thought that was pretty INCREDIBLE. BY the way I think that date was July 17, 2005. Here is the Needles daily observation report from the Weather Underground on 7-17-05:
By the way the following is the HOTTEST EVER temp I have seen reported to date on the internet (10-20-07) .
YES 138 DEGREES F ( 1-3-8 DEGREES) at the Military Base just north of Barstow, CA on July 5, 2007. I hope we do NOT see ANY temps that will top this. This is from the EXCELLENT “Mesowest” weather archive via the TinyURL forwarding service:
Doing some online checking it appears I was in Needles when it hit it’s record high of 125. What luck [%-)]
I was driving back from Colorado and passed through Needles on the 17th, and it was around 3:30 in the afternoon. I kind of remember the grocery employees saying it was likely going to be a record that day. But I never knew it was an all time record though.
Many times it’s been 122 going through there. As you go higher out of Needles (heading west or east) on I-40 the temp drops quickly. You leave the Colorado river valley and the temp drops to a comfortable 115 versus 120 [swg]
