The Rawlins House was obviously always a lower-budget alternative to the luxe accommodations across the street at Fred Harvey's La Castaneda hotel.
There are several ghosts signs on this building:
S side (2 of the same signs from different eras)
"FURNISHED
Furnished
Rooms"
Front over the door, 2 signs:
"HOUSE" and "ROOMS"
N side (2 signs, different eras)
"FURNISHED" which is bleeding through the newer sign for the Pawn Shop, which succeeded the rooming house use once the Harvey House and passenger rail era ended.
"Thunderbird Pawn Shop
[Pepsi Cola bottlecap]
It's got a lot to give"
The Rawlins House is on the US National Register of Historic Places as a contributing building in the Las Vegas Railroad Historic District (although its better days are obviously long ago): (
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"#175 Rawlins House Lodgings; 531 (?) RR; W.F.C.; 1898-1902; 2 stories; brick walls (side), pressed metal sheathing (front); (covered) fixed windows and two double doors with transoms, 1 single door (1st); 1/1 double-hung windows separated by pressed metal (?) pilasters and 1 floral/aquatic panel; pressed metal cornice with bosses, fleur-de-lis, brackets and garlands."
As awful as this place looks now, in the 1890s and while the Harvey House over at the Castaneda Hotel was in business, the Harvey Girls lived here (so it was up to Fred Harvey's high standards for propriety and appropriateness). See (
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"The AT&SF ran along the east side of Las Vegas, with Railroad Avenue next to it to the west. The Castaneda Hotel is on Railroad Avenue between Lincoln Street and Douglas Avenue. It is right off of I-25 at the University Avenue exit. The Santa Fe Depot is immediately south of the hotel, and is restored as the Las Vegas Visitors Center, as well as a functional Amtrak station. This pair of pictures was taken in front of the depot. The second tall building on the left side of the street is the Rawlins Building, where the Harvey Girls lived.
Las Vegas was a major stop on the Old Santa Fe Trail. When the AT&SF Railroad steamed into Las Vegas on July 4, 1879, overnight a new town was born a mile east of the old Plaza. By 1881, the Las Vegas Street Railway operated streetcar service between the train depot of East Las Vegas and the Plaza of the original Las Vegas, west of the Gallinas River."