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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

be found along the line were prostitutes--tarts who followed the railroad builders. When ranchers, miners, and decent farm folk began settling along the new Santa Fe, the only women they encountered for a while were Indians and whores.

At this time, there were no such thing as dining cars on trains. To fill the void, a man named Harvey opened restaurants on the Santa Fe at various stations. The trains would stop for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everybody would get out and have their meals. Then they would climb back on the train. Soon everybody got to know everybody else on the train. It was fun. Of course, it was rather leisurely. It took longer to go one hundred miles in those days than it takes to fly across the country now!

Mr. Harvey, who opened these restaurants, was a very religious man. He brought girls out to run the restaurants, but before she could qualify as a Harvey girl, she had to pass all kinds of tests. She had to be a church-going, decent virgin--if you know what that word means today. These girls were then brought out to all of these way stations. Since they were the only decent girls around the place, they became the social belles of all the new Western towns. Many of them married the most eligible men around, and virtually founded the great families of the West. Look up the family tree of today's great social families of the West, and you'll find very often that it goes back to one of these Harvey girls who married some rich young planter or miner.

It's a fascinating story. I've met the current





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