El Garces Intermodal Transportation Facility (also known as Needles station) is an Amtrak intercity rail station and bus depot in downtown

Needles, California Needles is a city in San Bernardino County, California, in the Mojave Desert region of Southern California. Situated on the western banks of the Colorado River, Needles is located near the Californian border with Arizona and Nevada. The city is a ...

. The structure was originally built in 1908 as El Garces, a Harvey House and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) station. It is named for Francisco Garcés, a Spanish missionary who surveyed the area in the 1770s. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. The

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

and ATSF subsidiary Atlantic and Pacific Railroad met at Needles and opened a station there in 1883. The Southern Pacific sold its line to the ATSF the next year, and Needles became a major waypoint on the ATSF route to Los Angeles. After the original station was destroyed by fire in 1906, the ATSF built El Garces – a large neoclassical structure containing a Harvey House hotel, restaurant, and train station – in 1908. It was the "crown jewel" of the Harvey House network, and among the first train stations made of concrete. The hotel and restaurant closed in 1949 as passenger traffic declined. The ATSF converted the interior for office space and baggage use in the 1950s, and demolished the eastern third of the building in 1961. In 1988, the railroad abandoned El Garces entirely; the city purchased the building in 1999 and reopened it as the El Garces Intermodal Transportation Facility in 2014. In 2016, Amtrak opened a dedicated waiting room for '' Southwest Chief'' passengers.

History

Original station

By the 1880s, the

(SP) and

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

(ATSF) were in competition to monopolize the rapidly growing

Southwestern United States The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, Ne ...

. On August 9, 1883, the SP completed its line eastward from Mojave, California to Needles, where it met the westward-expanding ATSF subsidiary Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. The depot – a utilitarian, one-story wood structure – was among the first buildings constructed in the new town. The ATSF soon believed that the SP would redirect traffic away from the Needles interchange in favor of its longer Overland Route and

Sunset Route The Sunset Route is a main line of the Union Pacific Railroad running between Southern California and New Orleans, Louisiana. The name traces its origins to the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, a Southern Pacific Railway subsidiary ...

, which would be more profitable for the SP. The ATSF threatened to build a competing line west from Needles; in August 1884, the SP sold the Mojave–Needles line to the Atlantic and Pacific. In 1898, the ATSF added a Harvey House and retrofitted the depot with a second story with hotel rooms to house passengers and Harvey House staff. The station was destroyed by fire on September 6, 1906.

El Garces

The ATSF saw the construction of a new station as an opportunity to promote Needles as a tourist destination (and thus bring passenger revenue to the railroad). Architect

Francis W. Wilson Francis W. Wilson (1870 - 1947) was an American architect. His practice in Santa Barbara, California included work for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and its associated Fred Harvey Company hotels, as well as many residences. Life and ...

was hired to design the new depot at Needles, which combined a railroad station, dining room, and hotel into a single massive structure. Opened on April 3, 1908, it cost $250,000 () to construct. The building was originally long and wide; much of the construction was done by local Mojave people. It was built of cast in place concrete, which served as a heat sink to moderate the daytime heat and nighttime chill of the desert, and was the first ATSF station constructed with concrete. The hotel was named El Garces after Spanish missionary Padre Francisco Garcés, who surveyed the area in the 1770s en route between the old California missions and Southern Arizona. Most ATSF stations were built in the Mission Revival style, but Wilson instead designed El Garces in the Classical Revival (neoclassical) style more common in East Coast stations. The distinct style was intended to give Needles a modern reputation, and fit in with the Fred Harvey Company policy of using updated styles. The ground floor included a lobby, dining room, lunch room, kitchen, laundry, and various facilities; the second floor was occupied by 64 hotel rooms. Both floors were surrounded by wide verandas. El Garces was the "Crown Jewel" of the entire Fred Harvey chain. It was staffed by the famous Harvey Girls, among whom it was a desirable assignment. In 1912, the original fountain in the central

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

was replaced by a newsstand, and the lunch room was remodeled. The lunch room was remodeled again in 1922, with the original painted concrete floor replaced with mosaic tiles, and a third time in 1927. El Garces was used to feed soldiers on troop trains during World War II, and George S. Patton frequented the hotel during war games in the surrounding desert. Faced with declining patronage as automobiles and airlines replaced long-distance train travel, the Harvey Company closed El Garces in 1949. The ATSF continued to use the structure and made renovations in the 1950s. The dining room was subdivided for office space, while the kitchen was converted to a baggage room, and a modern air conditioning system was installed. In 1961, the railroad demolished the east part of El Garces (which had formerly had a ticket office, baggage room, and offices on the first floor) to build a parking lot, reducing the length to . Although passenger facilities were now limited, the station was served by trains including the '' Super Chief'' and '' El Capitan'' until Amtrak took over intercity passenger service in the United States on May 1, 1971. Amtrak kept just a single train – the combined ''Super Chief''/''El Capitan'' – on the ATSF. The train (renamed ''Super Chief'' in 1973, ''Southwest Limited'' in 1974, and '' Southwest Chief'' in 1984) continued passenger service to Needles. The ATSF abandoned El Garces in 1988 and moved its offices to a former railroad medical building slightly to the south.

Restoration

In 1993, the Friends of the El Garces was formed in response to the possibility of demolition. A fire in 1995 damaged part of the former kitchen area. In 1999, the city purchased the structure from

BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...

(the successor to the ATSF). State-funded work to stabilize the building was completed in July 2001. El Garces was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 17, 2002. The city-developed plan involved reuse of El Garces for its original purposes: a hotel, restaurant, and railroad station. Construction began on March 7, 2007. The project was managed by the owners of the La Posada Hotel, another Harvey House that had successfully been reused, with the city intending to sell El Garces to one (Allan Affeldt). By 2010, the project reached a standstill, as the municipal ownership prevented Affeldt from obtaining loans, and federal tax credits would be threatened by plans to enclose the upper veranda for modern bathrooms. Because the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) would not allow the property to be transferred to private ownership if federal money was used for renovations, Affeldt left the project so that the city could use the federal funds. The city ultimately obtained $9 million in FTA funds and $2.4 million in state and county funds for the project, which was narrowed to focus on renovating part of the first floor for transportation use by Needles Area Transit and Amtrak. The $12 million project to create the El Garces Intermodal Transportation Facility was completed in 2014. Amtrak opened a waiting room – open during the overnight hours before the ''Southwest Chief'' arrives – on May 7, 2016.

References

External links

*USA RailGuide
Needles, CA (NDL)
{{authority control Fred Harvey Company Needles, California Garces, El Hotel Garces, El Hotel Museums in San Bernardino County, California Railroad museums in California History of the Mojave Desert region History of San Bernardino County, California Buildings and structures in San Bernardino County, California U.S. Route 66 in California Tourist attractions along U.S. Route 66 Hotel buildings completed in 1908 Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California National Register of Historic Places in San Bernardino County, California Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in California Defunct hotels in California Hotels established in 1908 Transport infrastructure completed in 1908 1908 establishments in California 1949 disestablishments in California Beaux-Arts architecture in California Neoclassical architecture in California Amtrak stations in San Bernardino County, California Railway stations in the United States opened in 1908