The long-time logo of the Santa Fe Railroad was a cross inside a circle inside a square, with the words “Santa Fe” inscribed on the horizontal bar of the cross.
Is there a story of how this logo came into being, or was it simply a graphic artist’s creation to distinguish the railroad from others?
Santa Fe, New Mexico was the original endpoint to the railroad when it was founded. Santa Fe, New Mexico was founded by Catholic missionaries, hence, the cross.
If you ever get the opportunity to read the legendary comic strip, “Krazy Kat” by George Herriman, that logo is often found in the strip. I think it may be a Navajo motif as the strip was set in the Navajo country of Monument Valley in Arizona.
“Santa Fe” is Spanish for “Holy Faith,” which the Spanish missionaries named the mission site.
According to Freeman Hubbard’s 1945 book “Railroad Avenue” after some unsatifactory attempts at a corporate symbol Sante Fe executives, after a bit of experimentation, adopted a symbol New Mexican Indians used to symbolized the Catholic faith, a Christian cross, the “Holy Rood,” overlaid on a circle symbolizing their old sun god.
It’s sure lasted a lot longer than the symbol used by the old St. Louis, Rocky Mountain & Pacific Railroad, the “Rocky Mountain Route.” They used another old American Indian symbol that just happened to be a swastika. I don’t have to tell you what eventually happened to that symbol!
The SL,RM&P eventually became part of the Santa Fe.
Wayne, “Santa Fe” is the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Christian Trinity.
(Insert all the humor you want about God’s favorite railroad…)
I stand corrected!
God’s favorite railroad? That’s easy, the Jersey Central![:-^]
Although I’m sure He has a soft spot for the Erie as well.
I thought “fe” was “faith”; I checked two different spanish-english dictionaries and they both say “faith.”
Yes, I’ve seen the railroad’s swastika emblem. FWIW, the Boy Scouts of America once had “The Order of the White Swastika” that was also discontinued when the symbol became debased.
Went back and checked, and it is I and not you that needs correction. ‘Santa Fe’ is the holy faith of the Roman Catholic Church.
(The third Person is Espíritu Santo, or similar)
One of my favorite stories as a child was the ‘Tale of Bing-O’ which my father had in his collection of childhood books (he was born in 1928). A major part of this story has essentially been destroyed by subsequent use of Bing-O’s good-luck symbol, even though it ‘went the other way’, perhaps collateral damage from how well some of the Nazis understood iconography.
Calling Diningcar! (MC will yield to the one with more seniority on the Grand Railroad of the Holy Faith)
That’s OK bro, nobody’s perfect. Man, I should know!
And the swastika. Hitler knew exactly what he was doing when he chose it for the symbol of the Nazi Party. He wanted something simple, striking, and bold enough so that anyone who saw it would never forget it. Goes without saying he ruined it for everyone else.
See my response a few minutes ago @ the NavajoSteel Gangs discussion.
The circle of life and the cross of Christianity.
The logo also has a resemblance to the New Mexico state flag, which is based on a local indian symbol for the sun.
https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/new-mexico/state-flag/flag-new-mexico
Definately one of the cooler state flags!
This one is the coolest in my opinion, and no, I don’t come from there, but flags and flag histories are a hobby of mine.
https://statesymbolsusa.org/symbol-official-item/maryland/state-flag/flag-maryland
In northen Ontario near the Quebec border on the Ontario Northland Railway is the town of Swastika. They never changed the name even after you-know-who. They put up a sign on the road leading into town and at the station that read, “The hell with Hitler, we had the swastika before he did!”
There was an American car called the Krittenden, built around 1912-14, on the order of a Stutz or Mercer, a sporty kind of car. Its radiator badge emblem was a swastika. There is a man who owns one today and he keeps it covered with tape.
There is a current maker of heating boilers called Burnham. In Port Jervis, New York is an old car dealer and they had a very old Burnham boiler from about 1925. Cast into the front is a very prominent Swastika.
Originally it is from Skanskrit and is (or was) meant to be a good luck charm.
The swastika shows up in quite a few cultures, Hindu, Japanese, Native American, ancient Greek tilework, it was even carved into the pedestal holding the statue of a saint right across from the choir loft in an Austrian Catholic Church where a young Adolf Hitler was a choirboy. (Imagine that!) Probably where he got the inspiration.
There’s a swastika rehabilitation organization trying to remove the Nazi taint, you can find them with an on-line search, but they’re wasting their time as far as I’m concerned. It’ll take at least 200 years before anyone can rehabilitate the thing, if even then.
Interesting about the Krittenden. Eva Braun had a Mercedes sports car with a swastika hood ornament but there’s no mistaking what that one was about!
By the way, Eva’s car survived the war, saw a photo of it a few years back. I don’t remember if it’s in private hands or a museum.
The name of the City of Santa Fe includes "Holy Faith, as shown by this snippet from The Legends of American page about the city:
"Its first governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, gave the city its full name, “La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asís,” or “The Royal City of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi”.
Reminds me of the full name of Los Angeles…
El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del Rio Porciuncula.
In English, The town of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, by the River Porciuncula.
Then there’s the Animas River that the Durango and Silverton runs along, in Spanish, El rio de los animas perditas, or “River of Lost Souls.”
Colorful people, the Spanish!