Description: |
One typed page including photograph; a brief history of Terre Haute's Union Station. ABASH VALLEY WP R O F I L E SA series of tributes to hometown people and events that have shaped our history.Union Stationmerican satirist Will Rogers once described Terre Haute's Union Station, which opened Aug. 15, 1893, as "the only depot I've ever seen with a silo on top." Surrounded by a landscaped plaza, the railroad terminal complex was situated east of Ninth Street between Sycamore and Spruce, where the north-south Chicago & Eastern Illinois and the Evansville & Terre Haute railroads intersected with the Terre Haute & Indianapolis Railroad (also known as "The Vandalia Line" because TH&I had been leasing and operating the 165-mile St. Louis, Vandalia & Terre Haute Railroad since 1870). Constructed of red stone and pressed brick, the three-and-a-half-story Romanesque building was crowned by a 200-foot tower with a cone on top. Designed by Cincinnati architect Samuel Hannaford, the new depot was the brainchild of TH&I president William Riley McKeen. Terre Haute contractor Jacob Miller supplied the brick and stone. Clift & Williams did the carpentry. Costing $270,000, the facility replaced a former hotel at 10th and Wabash that had been converted into a depot in 1861. By 1894 nine railroads were serving the city. Ten years later, 104 passenger trains stopped daily at Terre Haute terminals, including the Big Four Depot, built in 1899 about three blocks west of Union Station. For nearly six decades, Union Station was a showpiece: unconventional, but striking and functional. Surrounding its first-floor rotunda -- used as a lounging area and covered by cathedral glass illuminated from aboveAby incandescent lights -- were ticket offices, the manager's office, a barber shop, a beauty salon and dining facilities. An elegant chandelier was suspended form the ceiling glass. The elaborate kitchen in the basement was linked to the dining room by dumbwaiters. Railroad offices were distributed throughout the second floor. Dispatchers utilized the third floor. The ground floor was finished in quartered oak. Walls on the upper floors were hard pine. Three days after Union Station opened, McKeen sold TH&I -- then the city's largest employer -- to the Pennsylvania Railroad. Yet the remarkable facility continued to serve the community for 67 years and was the site of numerous notable events. Presidents, stage and screen stars, American troops and dignitaries from every discipline arrived and departed there. After being damaged several times during storms, the cone atop the tower was removed. In the late '40s, the complex -- which included two steel-framed train sheds and a railway express building -- began to fall into disrepair. Demolition began in late Spring 1960. Coaxed by explosives, Union Station and its celebrated "silo" -- a symbol of the city's reign as a major railroad hub -- crumbled to the ground on June 15. The express building was converted into a small depot and used until Pennsylvania Railroad merged with New York Central in 1968. For more than two decades thereafter, it was the AfroAmerican Culture Center at Indiana State University.TERRE HAUTE(812) 238-6000NATIONAL BANKAlways Close to HomeDate published: April 5, 2001Filename: Union Station profile |
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Origin: | 2001-04-04 |
Created By: |
McCormick, Mike |
Publisher: |
Terre Haute Tribune-Star |
Source: |
http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/vchs/id/593 |
Collection: |
Vigo County Historical Society |
Rights: | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/ |
Copyright: |
Copyright Undetermined |
Subjects: |
Railoads Railroad stations Railroad facilities Railroad travel Transportation |
Further information on this record can be found at its source.