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The
Tyler Depot
A National Historic Landmark
Tyler,
Texas by
Bob Bowman
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When
the first steam locomotive made its way into East
Texas more than a century and a quarter ago, it changed the economy and future
of the region in ways that were never imagined.
Today, however, many
of the old railroad depots
that became community landmarks have vanished--the fallout of a new wave of progress
brought about by automobiles and highways.
Some of the depots
that characterized the monumental changes in East
Texas are still standing, but rotting away in fields, where they were moved
to allow for new buildings in town.
Some towns, however, have kept their
depots as reminders of
the era when everyone used the railroad.
One such depot stands at Tyler,
where it is now revered as a National Historic Landmark. |
Located
in a downtown area known simply as “The Levee,” the depot was built in 1905 to
serve the Texas & St. Louis Railway -- later known as the Cotton Belt -
which had arrived in the city 25 years earlier.
With a population of
less than 2,500, Tyler
soon became a railway hub and
Smith County moved from a largely agricultural economy to one with the transportation
links to send its raw materials to markets all over the country. Peaches, strawberries,
potatoes, plums and tomatoes went to distant markets like St. Louis, Denver, Omaha
and Milwaukee.
The Cotton Belt not only established in Tyler
a roundhouse and machine shops, but located its executive offices here, as well
as a hospital known for its efforts to wipe out smallpox, malaria and typhoid
fever.
Tyler
businessmen also saw growth from the Cotton Belt. Railroaders found rooms at the
old St. Charles Hotel and Sam MarDock, Tyler’s
first Chinese businessman, opened a restaurant that served as the unofficial eating
place for Cotton Belt hands.
By 1924, the railroad provided nearly 1,300
jobs, generated a payroll of nearly $2 million, and paid almost $40,000 in local
taxes for Tyler.
But with the arrival of the Great Depression, the railroad -- like most other
businesses and institutions -- fell on hard times. And as roads and automobiles
improved in the forties, trucking took away much of the Cotton Belt’s customers.
Travelers stopped using railroad passenger cars.
In 1956, the last passenger
train arrived in Tyler
and the railroad depot was used for storage and offices until it was boarded up
and abandoned in 1987.
But
Tyler’s love for
all things historical soon embraced the old depot and, with a gift of the building
to the city by the Cotton Belt, Tyler
purchased the land on which the depot rested and began a revitalization effort
funded by a half-cent sales tax, the generosity of the Vaughn Foundation, and
federal grants.
The restoration was completed in four phases and a year
ago the depot returned to life as the headquarters of the city’s public transportation
services.
And on June 4, a city-wide celebration unveiled a plaque that
establishes the depot as a National Historic Landmark.
Since its restoration,
the depot has become a landmark for Tyler
and attracts railroad enthusiasts
and others almost every day. The depot also houses an exhibit of rail-related
memorabilia, much of it linked to Tyler’s
early years when the steam locomotive was king.
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All
Things Historical -
October 31, 2005 Column
Published with permission
(Distributed by the
East Texas Historical Association. Bob Bowman, of Lufkin, is a past president
of the Association and the author of more than 30 books about East Texas.)
See Tyler, Texas
More Texas Depots
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