At the age of 15, Fred Harvey, an Englishman, immigrated to America. He had many occupations, one of which was an agent for the Burlington Railroad. As he traveled on the train, we became very disgusted with the way meals were served. In the spring of 1876, Fred Harvey took over the restaurant at the Santa Fe depot in Topeka. Preferring the term Harvey Girl to waitress, Fred Harvey recruited single women to work at Harvey Houses along the Santa Fe Railroad line from Kansas to California. Between the 1880’s and the 1950’s more than 100,000 women, many Kansans, proudly wore the black-and-white-uniform of the Harvey Company.