LOGANSPORT’S WABASH TRAIN DEPOT article by Paul
Kroeger
For
71 years it stood prominently at the south end of Ninth Street, until it
was razed in March 1988 at the behest of the Norfolk Southern railway, a
successor company to the Wabash.
In
1917 this “new” Wabash station replaced an earlier depot, erected
around 1880, which was described as an “eyesore” and a “never-ending
source for comedians who traveled over the road and made stops at
Logansport”. (Logansport Pharos Tribune Reporter, Dec. 5, 1919.)
The
depot was a handsome, Renaissance-style building constructed of Bedford
brick with limestone highlights. The original waiting room, with paneled
oak ceiling, had a “ladies’ retiring room and a gents’ smoking
room”. A ticket office with traditional “teller’s cage” window
completed the classic layout.
The
baggage and express rooms were at the east end of the station. There was a
portico on the west side. Over the portico in Bedford stone slab was
inscribed, “Detroit 218 M” and “St. Louis 270 M”, the end point
mileages served by the passenger trains.
Originally
on the far east and west ends of the station grounds were two circular
grass and flower beds with decorative water fountains. “Dozens of fancy
electric lights”, as the Pharos reported, “will illuminate the
building at night”. The concrete train-boarding platform had a
400-foot-long, steel umbrella shed to protect passengers from inclement
weather.
Construction
of the station began in May 1917. In those days the president of the
Wabash Railroad was E. F. Kearney, a former Logansport resident who had
promised a new railroad station to his home city to replace the
“eyesore”. The Pharos Reporter boasted that “President Kearney and
his staff believe in doing a perfect job of everything and the Logansport
Wabash railway station will be as finely constructed a building as there
is in the state and as beautiful as any station in the country. Thirty
five thousand dollars will be put into the structure by the Wabash”.
The
new station was the fulfillment of Kearney’s promise to Logansport.
One
interesting feature of the station was a bronze plaque mounted on the
exterior south wall of the station which read, “On this spot was erected
the first log cabin in Cass County and in which the first white child was
born in this county on the fifteenth day of February, eighteen hundred and
twenty-eight”.
The
station was opened to the public on Monday, Dec. 10, 1917, with little
fanfare. From the Wabash railroad’s headquarters in St. Louis, Mr.
Kearney promised a formal dedication at some future, unspecified date. The
World War was under way and the “war to end all wars” occupied
railroad officials in other matters.
In the final years the Wabash depot was allowed to fall into disrepair. The train shed was shortened and eventually eliminated, as passenger trains no longer operated. Finally in March 1988, a small notice appeared in the Pharos-Tribune of a permit to raze the building. Several days later, the building was down. There was no time to mount an effort to save the structure.
above: The plaque that was attached to the Wabash Depot can be seen inside the Cass County Historical Society's museum.
This article was reproduced with Mr. Kroeger's approval.