The structure was originally built in 1908 as El Garces, a Harvey House and Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) station.

On August 9, 1883, the SP completed its line eastward from Mojave, California to Needles, where it met the westward-expanding ATSF subsidiary Atlantic and Pacific Railroad.

[5] The ATSF saw the construction of a new station as an opportunity to promote Needles as a tourist destination (and thus bring passenger revenue to the railroad).

[5] Architect Francis W. Wilson was hired to design the new depot at Needles, which combined a railroad station, dining room, and hotel into a single massive structure.

[5] The hotel was named El Garces after Spanish missionary Padre Francisco Garcés, who surveyed the area in the 1770s en route between the old California missions and Southern Arizona.

The lunch room was remodeled again in 1922, with the original painted concrete floor replaced with mosaic tiles, and a third time in 1927.

[5] Faced with declining patronage as automobiles and airlines replaced long-distance train travel, the Harvey Company closed El Garces in 1949.

[6] The ATSF abandoned El Garces in 1988 and moved its offices to a former railroad medical building slightly to the south.

[2] The city-developed plan involved reuse of El Garces for its original purposes: a hotel, restaurant, and railroad station.

[8] The project was managed by the owners of the La Posada Hotel, another Harvey House that had successfully been reused, with the city intending to sell El Garces to one (Allan Affeldt).

By 2010, the project reached a standstill, as the municipal ownership prevented Affeldt from obtaining loans, and federal tax credits would be threatened by plans to enclose the upper veranda for modern bathrooms.