el navajo train station painting

We were driving to Mesa when my wife and I stopped by Gallup, New Mexico. I had forgotten why. We looked for a railroad station and found a remnant of it, which housed the Gallup Cultural Center. I took photos outside, explored the inside and found historic photos of the El Navajo Hotel. Excitement sprung up in me. 

Could this be the site I was looking for?

The original hotel built by the Fred Harvey Company was much longer and wider. A reprinted photo of a drawing showed this.

The hotel train station had a news stand on the side that faced the rail tracks. Inside the station which is now an Amtrack rail station I saw reprinted photos of that news stand, below. Double click to enlarge images

 

^^^^^^^^^^^

From the photos of the hotel I could see the sand paintings mounted on the walls that Fred Geary had fashioned. Geary had been the head of the art department for the Fred Harvey enterprise for years. Harvey employed both the architect Mary Colter and the art technician Fred Geary.

 

(photo courtesy of State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri)

Fred Geary's sand paintings seen from the historic photos.

A photo of the tribes present at the opening of the El Navajo Hotel Train Station in 1923. That was why I saw Indian figures in the painting I had seen.

It was the exterior of the building, the side that faced the tracks. that convinced me this was the site -- yes this was it!!!  The word above the arch read "Gallup." The Santa Fe symbol at the top.

 

Compare with detail from painted work. Same area from other end in Gallup.

A painter friend I know in Carrollton once showed me a painted work. It had been passed down from his father Joseph Tonnar Sr. The work had been stored upstairs in a garage in Carrollton. It was a gouache painting of the El Navajo Hotel in Gallup. In the lower left hand corner is the artist's name.

The work was done by the Harvey artist Fred Geary. Who grew up in Carrollton. Whose father had been a station agent for the Santa Fe railroad in Carrollton, MIssouri. 
See  http://newmexicohistory.org/people/fred-geary. 
See  https://carrollton-wood-engraver.blogspot.com/2010/06/harvey-company-artist.html.  About Geary's father James F. Geary, 
see  https://carrollton-wood-engraver.blogspot.com/2010/05/model-of-diligence-and-perseverance-in.html

Details from gouache painting by Geary.

Upon a close look I could see pencil lines under the wash of paint.

It blew my mind. Finding the building that Geary had been a part of --- still standing.

Inside cafe where historic photos are on display.

A walk down the hall of Gallup train station. Three minutes.


It was afterwards, we had driven on and I was at the gas pump down the street -- that my emotions caught up to me -- I was shaken. That hidden piece of me deep inside -- all the weeks of research I had done on Geary back 2011. IT WAS STILL a vibrant part of me. When persons are united to a place or a time, and then that information is published or posted -- and others cite it-- it becomes history. I had goose bumps and tears. I didn't expect to be found out here in New Mexico.  The moment meant a lot. The One who had faithfully led me into this -- had brought me here to Gallup to see this. To be found and to know that He sees me. He loves me. He is not yet done with me.

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Thanks to Gallup Cutural Center for their historic photo collection of the El Navajo Hotel.
Photos of Fred Geary painting and trip shots by Karl Marxhausen, Carrollton, MIssouri.
Thanks to the owner of the Geary painting. Joseph Tonnar Jr of Carrollon, Missouri.