Named for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway – the Santa Fe, for short. The company was founded in 1859 as the Atchison and Topeka Railroad to serve those two Kansas cities. “Santa Fe” became part of the brand a year later, but only as an aspirational destination: its trains never actually went there. (A station in Albuquerque was opened in 1880.) But we’re here to talk about Los Angeles. Amid much tension with its rival, Collis P. Huntington‘s Southern Pacific, the AT&SF officially reached this city in May 1887, igniting a fare war that enticed thousands of Midwesterners to come to L.A., which in turn set off a historic real estate boom. Not coincidentally, May 1887 was when Santa Fe Avenue was named, with the AT&SF’s passenger depot opening near the street’s junction with 1st Street and its freight depot at 2nd. Six years later, the company’s extravagant “La Grande” station opened at Santa Fe and 3rd. Passenger service was ultimately moved to Union Station in 1939; the AT&SF folded in 1996. La Grande is long gone but the freight depot is now home to the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).
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