Missouri - Pacific Railroad Depot, Benton Arkansas

Tweet

Benton, Arkansas has been platted as early as 1836, and could boast of having a racetrack long before the establishment of Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, thirty miles to the southwest. Though such small, local industries as salt mining and a pottery works had been established relatively early, the arrival of the railroad after the Civil War combined with the explosion of the lumber and timbering industry locally to make Benton an important local transportation hub for both industrial and commercial interests, not to mention passenger traffic.

The Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot in Benton was constructed c. 1917 after it had acquired the old St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern line that ran between Missouri and Texas as part of the Missouri-Pacific Railroad's ambitious campaign to expand their network of rail lines all over the country, and to establish the railroad's corporate identity through the exclusive use of the Italianate/Mediterranean style of architecture for its passenger and freight depots.

It was demolished sometime prior to June 1999.

Building Description

The Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot in Benton is a one-and-one-half story, brick masonry freight and passenger depot designed in the Mediterranean style that was the architectural idiom of choice for several of the railroad lines that traversed Arkansas during the early twentieth century, but especially for the Missouri-Pacific Railroad. Its plan features separate passenger and freight buildings that are divided by an open breezeway yet united into a single structure by a continuous, hipped, red clay tile roof. The passenger section is unusual, as its cruciform plan results from its essentially rectangular shape being augmented with projecting telegrapher's bays placed opposite each other on the southern and northern elevations in response to the two sets of railroad tracks that flank the depot. Three brick chimneys rise through the roof: one through the gable ridge near the eastern hip, one through the southern slope of the gable ridge directly above the larger roof dormer, and another just to the west of the same dormer. The roof and walls are supported throughout by a continuous, cast concrete foundation.

The southern elevation is divided into the long wall of the western portion of the depot and the shorter wall of the eastern section. The eastern section is accessed via two symmetrically-placed rolling cargo doors, each surmounted by a five-pane transom. The open passageway separates it from the section to the west, which is dominated by the projecting telegrapher's bay with its hipped wall dormer above. The wall at the western end of the elevation was originally an open porch, supported upon brick columns; the openings have since been bricked-in, however, and the entire space has been converted into a freight storage area. To the east, a rectangular opening containing a pair of one-over-one wood sash windows leads to a tri-partite window containing a larger, central one-over-one wood sash window flanked by two smaller one-over-one wood sash windows, each of which is surmounted by a fixed, square transom window. Next to the east are two identical pair one-over-one wood sash windows, followed by the projecting, three-sided telegrapher's bay. This bay is lighted by a single, narrow one-over-one window in its western face and a central, tri-partite window identical to the one seen earlier. The eastern face of the telegrapher's bay is punctuated by a tall, central door surmounted by a single-pane transom. A hipped, wall dormer lighted with three small, rectangular window openings surmounts the telegrapher's bay. The remainder of the wall to the east of the telegrapher's bay is accessed by a central, single-leaf door flanked on the west by a single window and transom, and on the east by a smaller pair of one-over-one wood sash windows set into a square opening in the brick wall.

The northern elevation is similar to that opposite in that the western porch here is also filled, the separate portion at the eastern end is also accessed via two large, rolling cargo doors with transoms placed symmetrically in the facade, and the wall of the western section is dominated by the telegrapher's bay. The wall to the east of the telegrapher's bay is accessed via a single-leaf door that is itself flanked to the east by a pair of one-over-one wood sash windows and to the west by a tall, single one-over-one wood sash window surmounted by a transom. The northern face of the telegrapher's bay is lighted by a central, tri-partite window, the eastern face is accessed via a single-leaf door with a transom, and the western face is lighted with a narrow, one-over-one wood sash window. A hipped, wall dormer lighted with three small, rectangular window openings surmounts the telegrapher's bay. The wall to the west is accessed via two rolling cargo doors placed in the center of the original wall, with a large, tri-partite window to the east and a pair of smaller, one-over-one wood sash windows placed to the west. Another rolling cargo door has been inserted into the wall created when the original end porch was filled.

The eastern elevation is lighted with two symmetrically placed one-over-one wood sash windows; the western elevation is relieved only by a single, central rolling door.

Significant exterior details include the large, Italianate wood brackets that adorn the cornice around the entire structure and the relatively elaborate windows found at various points around the design.

(1992)

(1992)