Fred Harvey Research Paper

What do you think of when you think of Kansas? When I think of Kansas, I think of a very dry, flat state with lots of farming. Just because we are not the most popular state in the United States, it does not mean that we don’t have cool history. Most people do not realize that Kansas has had some very successful people. One individual that inspired me is Fred Harvey. Fred Harvey was born in London on June 27, 1835. Although Fred Harvey wasn’t born in Kansas, he came to Kansas when he was fifteen years old. When he was twenty-four he opened a restaurant in St. Louis, but it went out of business when his partner ran away with the cash right before the Civil War started. After his business failed, he moved to Leavenworth and worked as a freight agent. The train would often take the passenger’s …show more content…
Harvey experienced this a few times. He first opened a Fred Harvey restaurant in Topeka. People immediately loved it because it had good food, it was clean, it had great service, and it was at a reasonable price. Soon they were a chain of restaurants about every one hundred miles from each other along the Santa Fe Main Line. Harvey wanted the best food that he could get to give to his customers, so he kept his own beef herd, operated its own dairies, and shipped tank cars of fresh water to the restaurants in the desert areas. The menus consisted of thick, juicy steaks, and hot, crispy hash browns. Meals were served on tables outfitted with imported linens, silver table service, and fine china personalized with Fred Harvey’s name. The most popular part of his restaurants were his