Foodlore Library

I handed the sheet to my girlfriend, Sienna.  She squinted, scrutinizing the faded menu closely.  It was a standard, letter-size, tri-fold brochure, printed on both sides of gray card stock that was becoming limp with age. 

“Wow!  Where did you get this?”

“My mother found it in the barn the other day,” I said.

“These food prices are absolutely amazing.”

• Coffee                                                                         5 cents;
• Cup of chili                                                               5 cents;
• Bowl of chili                                                           10 cents,
• Bowl of chili w/onions and cheese                   15 cents;
• Hamburger                                                             25 cents;
• Cheeseburger                                                         30 cents;
• Steak and eggs                                                       85 cents;”

“I know.  This was printed in the 1950s,” I added.

“What’s this mean?” She pointed to the copyright at bottom of the page. 

“That copyright?  WPRR stands for Western Pacific Railroad.  My dad used to be one of their roadmasters.  He retired from the WP in the 1970s and the Southern Pacific bought them out in the 1980s, I think.  This menu was from a WP beanery.”

“Beanery?  What’s a beanery?” she asked.

“Beaneries were the company restaurants inside WP railroad depots along the railroad’s mainline,” I said.  “I imagine the prices are fairly standard for the entire mainline.  Railroad workers, like engineers, firemen, conductors, or brakemen, might end up a long way from home.  So the railroad needed to provide affordable meals to workers. 

"Most depots had a second floor of  rooms above a beanery to overnight railroad crews.  They’d pull into a station and switch out crews.  The crews would hit the beanery for a meal and head upstairs to sleep," I said.

"So they were all the same setup?"

"Not exactly.  Some whistle stops were too small; in some larger towns the depots were bigger.  There was a fairly standard size, though,  so they put beaneries in most of the depots.”

“So these beaneries we’re only for employees?”

“Oh, no.  They were for anybody and everybody.  Sometimes a beanery out in the sticks was the only place to eat for miles around.  Farmers, miners, cowboys, ranchers, and even travelers on horseback…they’d all head to the railroad depot for food and company. 

"I remember at one depot, the crew would stop long enough to wash the train.  This was only for their passenger train, the California Zephyr.  It would take about an hour to wash the train.  Folks would stretch their legs and wander into the beanery to grab a quick meal.  Then they would load everyone up and take off again.”

“They still have beaneries?” she asked.

“Nah!  They tore them down.  Or rather, they tore down the depots they were in,” I said.

“Tore them down?  Well, that’s a little sad.  Why’d they do that?” Sienna asked.

“They weren’t cost-effective.  The government taxed the railroads’ buildings by square footage.  To save money, they tore down the old depots and put in smaller, steel buildings.  Yeah, it was sad to see the old depots go.  I ate quite a few meals in those beaneries.  I did get a chuckle watching them try to knock down this one depot in Wendover, Nevada.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I’d heard talk about how the building creaked and it was going to fall down anyway.  But they used a two and a half ton wrecking ball on the ridgepole for two weeks before it started to give.  I remember hearing the first big 'crack.'  It was a tough, old building made of huge, no-knot timbers,” I lamented.

“Sometimes, that’s the way it goes, isn’t?  You don’t know a thing's value until it’s gone,” Sienna said, and we both grew quiet, looking at this artifact from the last century.