Valencia County's Belen Harvey House, VCHS Strengthen Effort to Preserve Railroad Heritage

The Belen Harvey House Museum, located in central Belen beside the railyard, is operated as a branch of the Belen Public Library under Library and Museum Director Kathleen Pickering while the Valencia County Historical Society continues to curate exhibits and collections that interpret the town’s railroad history. The museum’s administrative shift in 2013, when VCHS turned over management to the City of Belen, leaves municipal staff responsible for day-to-day operations even as VCHS maintains a close oversight and curatorial role.

The building’s layered history anchors the museum’s mission. The Harvey House originally opened in 1910 and operated as a Harvey House restaurant until 1939, including a “first-class dining room” with a horseshoe-shaped marble counter and Harvey Girls who lived upstairs. The facility briefly reopened during World War II to serve troop trains, later became the Santa Fe Reading Room for railroad employees from the 1950s through the 1970s, and was boarded up before the Santa Fe Railroad donated the structure to the City of Belen in 1982. Valencia County Historical Society volunteers opened the first local museum there in 1985 in time for the building’s 75th anniversary; early volunteer Ruth Auge said then, “We have a sprout of a museum that we hope will grow.”

Local preservation campaigns and volunteer labor drove the building’s rescue and restoration. The Save the Harvey House Committee included Marion Herlihy, Zed Park, Randy Dooley, B.G. Burr, Representative Ron Gentry, and Mayor Boleslo Lovato as named participants in the archival record, and a city council debate at the time featured then-councilor Ronnie Torres’s warning, “We can’t replace history.” A major late-1990s refurbishment required removing “no fewer than five layers of paint” and redoing floors, with hundreds of volunteers including Elderhostel workers, Boy Scouts, Walmart employee volunteers, and local contributors such as Vince Chavez, Nelson Van Valen, and Ken Gibson.

Institutionally, VCHS has acted as a countywide steward since it formally organized in 1969, founded by residents including Tibo J. Chavez and Marion Herlihy. The society reports more than 50 active members and runs regular programming: a monthly speakers series, an annual meeting with keynote addresses, and a weekly contribution to the Valencia County News-Bulletin with the “La Historia del Rio Abajo” column running since 1998. VCHS’s publications include Rio Abajo Heritage, the 2018 anthology Notable and Notorious Neighbors of Valencia County, and the 2019 children’s title Heroes of the Rio Abajo.

Today the Harvey House’s collections emphasize railroad and local history with period installations such as a 1920s Dining Room, a Christmas display of military uniforms, and Harvey House staff displays; the site also is described as offering “the best view of Belen's incredible railyard and rail history.” The building houses museum exhibits alongside the Belen Model Railroad Club’s presence while city administration manages public access. For city contacts, the City of Belen’s offices are at 100 S. Main Street, Belen, NM 87002, phone 505-966-2730, with city hours Monday–Thursday 7:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m. and Friday 8:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. As the county’s centerpiece museums remain focal points for preservation, the clarified division, VCHS as curator and the City as operator, defines who is accountable for programming, archives, and the long-term stewardship of Belen’s railroad heritage.