[Date Prev][Date Next] [Chronological] [Thread] [Top]

(rshsdepot) Windsor Locks, CT



From the Hartford Courant.
 
Bernie Wagenblast
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 
Windsor Locks Group Work to Preserve Train Station

By SHAWN R. BEALS  | Courant Staff Writer May 20, 2008 
 
WINDSOR LOCKS —  The old train station certainly doesn`t look like  much 
right now, but it`s so much a part of the character and history of the town  that 
it has been a focus of the downtown revival study. 
 
For nearly 100 years, the passenger station served as the front door to the  
village of Windsor Locks, putting passengers on the busy Main Street that at 
one  time had a hotel, drugstores, an opera house and restaurants. 
 
The train station was built in 1875, and the last ticket was sold in 1971,  
said Mickey Danyluk, president of the Windsor Locks Preservation Association. 
 
The association was founded in 2004 and since then, founding members  Danyluk 
and Barbara Schley have been working to save the train station. They  have 
been negotiating with Amtrak to purchase the train station for about a year  and 
a half, and are making progress. 
 

Related links Windsor Locks Train Station Photo Windsor Locks Train  Station 
Photo ``It`s the last surviving structure of the Windsor Locks business  
district,`` Danyluk said. 
 
The station was not only a portal to the world, but served as a backdrop  for 
national and state political campaigns. 
 
•President Dwight D. Eisenhower made a stop there during his presidential  
term on a whistle-stop tour in the 1950s. 
 
• Windsor Locks native and first female governor of Connecticut, Ella T.  
Grasso, boarded a train from the station in 1975 to go to Hartford for her  
inauguration, after walking there from Mass at St. Mary`s Church. 
 
•Irish domestic servant Jane Carr left Windsor Locks from the train station  
to go back to Ireland and was set to return to the country on the doomed 
Titanic  maiden voyage in April 1912. 
 
•Townspeople gathered at the station to send off and receive soldiers  during 
wartime, and also received those that died serving the country in the  
Spanish-American War, both World Wars and the Korean War. 
 
•Hundreds of Civil War veterans, judges, political figures and dignitaries  
arrived through the station for the June 10, 1891, dedication of Soldiers  
Memorial Hall. 
 
As it is now, the station needs a new roof, windows, bricks, flooring,  
plumbing, electrical work, insulation, utilities and many other improvements and  
renovations, Schley said. 
 
``It would be the catalyst to turning the Main Street around,`` she said.  
``It should have been done years and years ago.`` 
 
In the 1970s, the station was very close to being lost forever, until the  
Save the Station Committee stepped in and applied to have the station put on the 
 National Register of Historic Places, Danyluk said. Since then it has sat 
vacant  with boards over the windows watching other buildings nearby turn vacant 
as  well. 
 
The Preservation Association has a vision of much more than that, one that  
will do its history justice and still serve the town in some way as it did for  
so long. 
 
``It`s a classic piece of small-town America,`` Danyluk said. 
 
Danyluk is a third-generation Windsor Locks resident who remembers seeing  
soldiers leave from the station. His grandfather worked there and was the one  
who would drop the gates when the train came. 
 
Since 2004, the association has grown to about 200 members and expanded its  
focus beyond preserving the train station. 
 
``People just came out of the woodwork, people love that building,``  Danyluk 
said. 



**************Get trade secrets for amazing burgers. Watch "Cooking with 
Tyler Florence" on AOL Food.      
(http://food.aol.com/tyler-florence?video=4&?NCID=aolfod00030000000002)

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org
To Unsubscribe: http://lists.railfan.net/rshsdepot-photo/unsub.html

------------------------------

End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #1732
********************************

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