DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, Silsbee — laid out in 1894 as a sawmill town, which is about as honest an origin as a Texas town can claim. Then 1902 rolls around, and the Santa Fe Railroad comes through, and just like that, Silsbee is on the map in a whole new way.
By the end of that same year, a depot was built. The town was movin'. Three years later, a Harvey House Hotel opened its doors.
And if you don't know the name Fred Harvey, well, that's the name behind the whole Harvey House operation — hotels and restaurants strung out along the Santa Fe lines all the way from Chicago to California. The man built an empire on the idea that travelers deserved efficient and elegant service, and his Harvey Houses had a way of becoming something more than just a place to eat or sleep. They had a way of becoming a genuine part of a town's cultural life.
Silsbee had one of those. And then — 1906 — the Harvey Hotel burned. Just like that, gone.
Now, that could've been the end of the story. But it wasn't. By 1908, a new Harvey House Restaurant was completed and open for business.
It kept right on going, serving Silsbee, until 1923. A sawmill town that found itself on a railroad line, got a taste of something elegant, lost it to fire, and rebuilt it anyway. That's a particular kind of stubbornness.
In Texas, we usually just call it Tuesday.
What the marker says
Laid out in 1894 as a sawmill town, Silsbee became a stop on the Santa Fe Railroad in 1902. By the end of that year a depot was built, and three years later a Harvey House Hotel opened. Named for entrepreneur Fred harvey, Harvey House Hotels and restaurants were located along the Santa Fe lines from Chicago to California. Offering efficient and elegant service, Harvey Houses often were an important part of a town's cultural life. The Silsbee Harvey Hotel burned in 1906, but a new Harvey House Restaurant, completed in 1908, continued in operation until 1923.