Barstow Depot & Museums

The Casa Del Desierto Harvey House lobby opens onto the loading platform for the railroad. This photo was taken from the landing on the stairway to the second floor where the guest rooms were located.

The hotel was built in 1911 and the Santa Fe Railroad abandoned it in 1974. After being closed for many years the building then underwent several years of restoration interrupted by serious damage from an earthquake in 1991. The building finally reopened in 1996. The windows facing the tracks on the second floor were the guest rooms. A narrow balcony on the end of the building was accessible by guests from the main hallway.

One of the cool things about this building is that they have kept a couple of hotel rooms open so visitors to can see what the accommodations were like in the early days of the hotel.

The east end ballroom could seat 110 at a time for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Formal dress was required if you wanted to be served in this room. The west dining room was a less formal place with no jacket required for men. It is the same size as the east dining room. At one time the was a 50 seat dining counter in the less formal dining room. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Route 66 Museum
The Barstow Route 66 Museum is located in the Amtrak / Harvey House building, on the ground floor of the brick wing in this photo. The museum opened in 2000 and operates on limited hours. Check their FB page for hours. This is a nice museum full of Route 66 history. There is also a gift shop featuring all sorts of goodies related to the Mother Road, so stock up on a few and help support the museum at the same time.

Western American Railroad Museum
The railroad museum is located in the east end of the building and is open to the public on Fri. Sat. & Sun from 11-4.

There are several old train cars and locomotives on display at the museum. This view is looking towards the museum entrance.

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Vintage Advertising Highlights

Fred Harvey
Restaurants, Hotels, Shops
Casa del Desierto (House of the Desert), the Fred Harvey Hotel in Barstow, is built after the style of the Spanish renaissance, with walls of tapestry brick and gray stone trimmings, red tile roof and arcade balconies on both stories.

NOTE: It's interesting that this postcard goes into detail about the hotel building without mentioning that the place is connected to the Santa Fe (now Amtrak) Depot.
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Photo(s): 2009 and 2013