Before the Casa del Desierto, Barstow featured a wooden railroad depot, restaurant, and hotel serving Santa Fe passengers. Authoritative historical accounts generally date this earlier complex to 1885. Later, Fred Harvey operated the railroad’s hotel and dining facilities at Barstow, preparing the foundation for the site’s future development.
A turning point occurred in 1908: a fire destroyed the wooden depot-hotel. By then, Barstow had grown to be more than just a stop; as an important railroad division point, it needed more than another temporary replacement. The Santa Fe Railway responded by commissioning a much larger and more permanent structure.
In 1911, builders opened the Casa del Desierto, combining a railroad station, a Harvey House restaurant, a hotel, and a community gathering place. The reinforced construction, broad arcades, towers, tile roofs, and thick walls sharply departed from the wooden building it replaced.
While the above sequence is well documented, several local histories report additional depot fires and reconstructions preceding the construction of the Casa del Desierto. Although this account appears plausible, no one has yet verified the chronology using primary-source documentation.
