(rshsdepot) St. Joseph, MO

[Bernie Wagenblast <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

Links:
http://www.nationalrrmuseum.org/stations/stjoseph.htm
http://members.fortunecity.com/wuppie/depot.jpg
http://www.judnick.com/images/Missouri_SaintJoseph_Depot_small.jpg  (1911
postcard - small image)
http://atsfry.com/EasternArchive/Meades/stjoeuni.htm


Union Depot provided a destination for culture

By ALONZO WESTON
alonzow_@_npgco.com
St. Joseph News-Press

Traveling by train was the most popular mode of transportation in America in
the early part of the 20th century.
Trains played a prominent part in American history and, for a time, they
were a big part of the St. Joseph cultural fabric. The old Union Depot made
the area around Sixth Street and Mitchell Avenue the center of that culture.
At its pinnacle, anywhere from 50 to 90 passenger trains a day passed
through the station. Politicians and celebrities, hoboes and transients all
stopped here.
The long, red brick building constantly was filled with crowds waiting for
the next train, St. Joseph resident Shirley Alcorn said.
"It was like another world," she said. "It was kind of a neighborhood
attraction."
Some three weeks after Jesse James was killed, the Union Passenger Station,
as it was officially dubbed, opened for business in April 1882. It was the
first of two depots built on the Sixth Street and Mitchell Avenue site.
The impressive two-story building quickly became a hub of activity. The city
passed an ordinance just to govern the many solicitors who flocked to greet
incoming passengers.
The depot even had a hotel on its second floor. And horse-drawn taxis,
courtesy of the hotel, usually sat in front of the building.
But all that activity came to an abrupt halt on the night of Feb. 9, 1895,
when the depot burned to the ground.
It didn't stay down long, though. It was rebuilt later that year and
reopened in January 1896. The new building, also red brick, covered almost
two city blocks. It no longer had a hotel inside, but under its long and
high-arched ceiling were a dining room, a barbershop and a shoe shine
parlor.
Mrs. Alcorn remembers the newer building. She was a bright-eyed teen-ager in
high school when she went there in 1953. Years later, its enormity reminded
her of Paris.
"I remember it was so big you couldn't grasp it," she said. "It was like
when I was in Paris and the taxi driver dropped me off in front of the
Eiffel Tower. All I saw was a building, but the building was one leg of the
tower."
What Bill Perks, another St. Joseph resident, remembers is the immensity and
the grand ambience inside the depot.
"It was quite a place for St. Joseph," he said. "It had a first-class
restaurant and a long, oak bench seat."
Mr. Perks also said celebrities and dignitaries stopped at the depot.
"People from Hollywood went through there," he said.
Western legend Buffalo Bill Cody came through once. Joe Louis came through
several times. The former heavyweight boxing champion slept there in a
private car once.
More than a few presidents gave speeches at the depot.
President Woodrow Wilson stopped there on his 1919 Midwest speaking tour.
His visit came just a few months before he suffered a stroke that rendered
him an invalid for the rest of his life.
William Howard Taft, Dwight Eisenhower and Williams Jennings Bryan also made
speech stops at the Union Depot. But Harry Truman is the only president who
Clyde Weeks remembers - and for good reason.
"I was only in (the Union Depot) one time and that was when President Truman
came to town," he said. "It was around 1952, and I was about 14 or 15 years
old at the time."
The demise of the Union Depot came in the 1950s. The interstates were being
built, and automobiles had become the more popular form of transportation.
Passenger service at the depot soon came to an end. The landmark building
closed and was demolished in 1960.

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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