Slaton developed from ranchland into a railroad town after the Santa Fe Railway bought the land in April 1911 and named the townsite for rancher and banker O.L. Slaton. Passenger and freight service became central to the local economy, and the company built a passenger depot and Harvey House the following year. Fred Harvey, a Scottish immigrant, had created the Harvey House chain in 1876 in partnership with the Santa Fe Railway, with the railway building the restaurants and providing space on its trains for food and supplies while Harvey supplied the equipment, management, and hospitality staff, including the Harvey Girls. The Slaton Harvey House served efficient but elegant meals to 42 passengers at a time around a horseshoe-shaped counter on the first floor, which also contained the kitchen, bakery, gift shop, and manager’s office, while the manager and family and the Harvey Girls lived on the second floor. A commercial and social center, it operated for thirty years and briefly reopened to serve troops during World War II. The building remained a passenger depot until 1969, then was converted by the railroad into a freight depot and operations center before being vacated in the 1980s. Slaton citizens later coordinated preservation and restoration of the two-story Mission Revival building, which features one-foot-thick concrete walls, an arcaded trackside pavilion with stepped parapet, overhanging eaves with brackets, divided light windows, and a flat upper story parapet decorated with the Santa Fe Railway company symbol.