Harvey House Museum

The Belen Harvey House opened in 1910 beside the Santa Fe Railway’s busy Belen junction. It served passengers until 1939 and later reopened during World War II to provide meals for troop trains. Today, the restored building operates as a museum with exhibits on the Harvey Girls, railroad travel, local history, and Belen’s role as an important rail center. Visitors can explore historic dining spaces, photographs, uniforms, artifacts, and displays documenting life along the railway.

What is a Harvey House?

Harvey Houses were hotels and restaurants operated with the Santa Fe Railway from the late 1800s into the mid-1900s, with some New Mexico locations remaining open into the 1950s and 1960s. They gave passengers reliable meals, lodging, and service at a time when rail travel through the Southwest could be unpredictable. The Harvey Houses—and women known as Harvey Girls—created jobs, helped railroad towns grow, and introduced generations of travelers to New Mexico. Their architecture, hospitality, and promotion of Southwestern culture also played a major role in shaping the state’s early tourism industry.

The Santa Fe Railway

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway was chartered in 1859 to connect Kansas with Santa Fe and the markets of the Southwest. The railroad reached Albuquerque in 1880, while Santa Fe itself was served by a branch line from Lamy, and its 1881 connection with the Southern Pacific at Deming helped create a second transcontinental rail route. The system later expanded across New Mexico, including the Belen Cutoff in 1907, which created a lower-grade route south of Albuquerque and strengthened Belen’s importance as a railroad center. The Santa Fe became famous for both freight service and passenger trains such as the Super Chief before transferring passenger operations to Amtrak in 1971. In 1995, it merged with Burlington Northern to form what became BNSF Railway.