SELIGMAN — Looking through a chain-link fence at the abandoned Havasu Hotel, once the economic and social center of this Northern Arizona community, Angel Delgadillo found it hard to acknowledge that it won't be here soon.
"Progress," he said, shaking his head.
Residents of Seligman — about halfway between Flagstaff and Kingman — have fought for years to save the former Harvey hotel. They learned recently that Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway will tear it down.
"We're losing so much," said Delgadillo, a lifelong Seligman resident who runs a Route 66-themed gift shop. "All we have are the memories. It was the elite of hotels, not just in Seligman but in the entire state. It was a time of dignity. It was so special. These are the things you don't forget."
Lena Kent, a spokeswoman for the railroad, which owns the property, said demolition would begin this week. She would not elaborate on what might replace the building.
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"It's really sad that it wasn't able to find a new home," Kent said. "After a decade, we had to make the decision to go forward."
The railroad was willing to let someone move some or all of the hotel to another site, but a deal didn't materialize. Instead, some items from the hotel will be salvaged and donated to the Seligman Historical Society, Kent said.
In 1982, the railroad's former owner offered to sell the hotel to the town's Chamber of Commerce, but there wasn't money to renovate it at the time, Delgadillo said.
His daughter, Mirna, and others continued working to preserve the hotel as part of the town's railroad heritage.
"The Harvey House is what made Seligman," Mirna said. "Here in America nowadays, unfortunately, we are so quick to tear down the old to build the new, and in the process . . . we're wiping out our history."
The Seligman Historical Society worked for the past six years to save the hotel, also to no avail.
"We had a lot of verbal support but no sugar daddy," said John Fitzgerald, one of the society's five members. "Maybe we could have an epitaph. It's a part of the history of this area, and I just can't believe they're doing it."
In a last-ditch effort, local shop owner Frank Kocevar proposed raising money to move the front face of the hotel to another property he owns. But the money didn't come through, and he and the railroad were unable to reach an agreement.
In a letter to Kocevar in March, the railroad said the structure had deteriorated and had been vandalized to the point that it was in the best interests of the company to go ahead with the demolition.
Built in 1905, the 60,000-square-foot building is one of the few remaining relics of a hotel chain founded by restaurant magnate Fred Harvey. The Harvey Houses provided passengers riding the rails west with fashionable sleeping quarters and fine food.
El Tovar, on the Grand Canyon's South Rim, and the restored La Posada Hotel in Winslow are Harvey hotels that have been preserved. A former Harvey hotel in Williams now houses offices and a gift shop for the Grand Canyon Railway.
The Havasu Hotel closed in the 1950s when the railroad ceased making regular stops in Seligman, but the railroad continued to have offices there until 1988.
Mirna Delgadillo said it's a shame to see the hotel go. She remembers seeing travelers from all points stop at the hotel and head to her father's nearby barbershop and pool hall.
"We never got that person who had the money, the desire or the passion," she said. "I guess our time has run out."
