11th – We are now speeding across the desert of Arizona. Here Indians & mesicans work on the R.R. Stopped at Winslow at 9 AM. & had breakfast. Got took for $2.75 but you can bet it was the last 6 bit meal on this trip “Experience is a dear school, but fools wont learn anyplace else”. Ben Franklin says so & I’m inclined to believe him. 1:30 P.M. We are now at the wonderful town of Gallup where we have stopped to eat dinner. But I guess I dont want any (out of the Depot Hotel, at least.). This town is in New Mexico. There are about a dozen houses here – 4 of them being saloons. “Toot,toot, She’s gone again”. At 6:45 P.M. we arrived in Albuquerque.
Because railroad construction and maintenance pay was so bad and the manual labor was so difficult, white American men preferred other opportunities available to them. On the other hand, ethnic minorities and recent immigrants had fewer employment choices. Worker demographics varied with the region so that European immigrants worked in the Northeast, African-Americans worked in the South, European and Chinese immigrants (before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882) worked in the Northwest, and Mexican immigrants and Native Americans worked in the Southwest. While everywhere else the section workers were called gandy dancers, in the Southwest, they were called traqueros. The Santa Fe Railway enthusiastically encouraged whole families to emigrate from Mexico because they wanted the cheap manpower and the families would provide stability and reduce turnover. The Santa Fe provided free family housing by way of two-room boxcars much like the Northwest logging companies provided single and family bunkhouses and boxcars. The traquero boxcar communities developed from Los Angeles to Chicago and survive to this day (without the boxcars).
In 1901, $2.75 had the same spending power as $83.01 in 2019, so that was quite a price hike for a breakfast. No wonder Jesse didn’t feel like eating dinner in Gallup!
Hello, I want to thank you for all these wonderful posts. I love that you give additional details, so I feel like I am traveling with Jesse on this vacation.
But I was noting that comment he made about his breakfast. He said it was “$2.75 …. the last six bit meal”. I believe 2 bits is valued at $.25, so shouldn’t 6 bits be $.75? How many people was he feeding for $2.75? —- Am I missing something? Do you any ideas?
Thanks again for these posts!!
Hi Kathy! I am so glad you are enjoying the posts! I sit and stare a lot at what Jesse wrote, sometimes consult with a few people, open 20 browser tabs for searches, and still can’t figure out what is going on. Your question has me thinking and laughing. Have you ever got a drive-thru breakfast, found the price a little high, and then when you ate it, it was too gross and coagulated to finish? Maybe I’m revealing too much about myself.
My best guess here is that he’s trying to say that the breakfast wasn’t worth more than 6 bits, or as you say, $0.75, but they charged $2.75. It is a little frustrating that Jesse frequently says the cost of something but he doesn’t say if it’s for each person or the total amount, and 118 years later it is hard to guess what is a reasonable cost or not. If $2.75 equals about $83 today, it could be the total cost for Jesse and his brother John, or maybe it was really outrageous and it cost that much for each guy (I’m inclined to think that was the total bill). Wow. So think of paying $40 or $80 for a drive-thru breakfast.
Since you are bringing up the breakfast and he’s thinking it was very overpriced, another aspect to consider is Winslow, Arizona, seems to be out in the middle of nowhere for 1901.
Breakfast might be nonperishable flour or cornmeal goods like biscuits, rolls, grits, porridge, or pancakes. The coffee might not have been too good, although Folgers Coffee was based in California and possibly available. Maybe there was salted meat or a stew. Perhaps residents nearby had chickens and cows and sold milk, butter, and eggs at a premium to whoever was preparing meals at the depot. There might not have been any syrup, sugar, fresh fruits or vegetables, or orange juice, or if there was, it would have been expensive. EWE, and since it’s 1901, there aren’t any health inspectors or legal standards of cleanliness, so the establishment might have been really gross. It’s not that this is the first cruddy meal that Jesse has had on his bachelor trip, but he seems galled about the price of this one. He rarely complains about anything so this must have really irritated him, and so much that he didn’t want to bother with another overpriced, awful dinner later that day. At least, that is my guess!
Thank you again for posting!
erin
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this ridiculous price. (Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to respond before now.)
I guess I was hoping that there was a transcription error, and that the diary actually said he paid $0.75. I would be mad that I paid about $25 (today’s value) for breakfast. But if I paid $85 (today’s value) I would have a complete fit!
And while I see your point about Winslow being out in the middle of nowhere, but if it was a train station. They should have a continual source of food to feed passengers, as well as towns people. — But with the limited amount of information you have to work with, I understand the difficulties you face trying to fill in the blanks, so to speak. So keep up the good job.
Hi Kathy! It might be some transcription error. The original diary is with one of Jesse’s great-great-granddaughters, and it is deteriorating to a point that it is difficult to read and check over for any errors. I believe it in the next entry there a link regarding the Fred Harvey Houses. It specifically mentions the outrageous train depot prices for really bad food, and that Fred Harvey created his business to address that problem.
Thank you again!