Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot, Camden Arkansas
A Frenchman named Fabre was the first recorded European to settle the location that would become Camden (originally Ecore Fabre, or Fabre's Bluff). More permanent settlement occurred just before 1820, when more settlers came up the Ouachita River and landed here, just before the falls that rendered further travel more difficult. The community became the county seat in 1843, and was renamed Camden the following year by General Thomas Woodward for his hometown in Alabama.
Camden's advantageous location on the Ouachita River, a major transportation route into the region, was only enhanced by the gradual introduction of such industries as a woolen mill in 1860. Camden continued to function as a major river port after the Civil War, and became a regional transportation hub soon after 1873, when the Iron Mountain Railway constructed a branch from its main Missouri to Texas line to the northeast, leaving from Gurdon and running southeast to Camden. Thereafter, other railroad lines, specifically, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific and the St. Louis Southwestern (Cotton Belt), also ran lines into and through Camden, further establishing it as the principal railroad hub in south-central Arkansas. Such other industries as the Camden Furniture Company and the Camark Pottery Plant also flourished in Camden, giving it a strong industrial and manufacturing base to add to its earlier status as a transportation center, and the city continued to prosper up until World War II.
The Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot in Camden was constructed in 1917 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.
Building Description
The Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot in Camden is a single-story, brick masonry freight and passenger railroad 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 is rectangular, with an open porch at its eastern end and a telegrapher's bay projecting from its northern elevation. A single, brick chimney rises through the southern slope of the hipped roof, just to the east of center. Its red clay tile roof and brick walls are supported upon a continuous, cast concrete foundation.
The southern or front elevation is composed of a continuous brick wall and an open porch at the eastern end. The porch roof rests on a total of four supports: two wood posts atop attached brick piers abutting the eastern wall of the depot, and two "L"-shaped brick piers at the eastern corners upon each of which three square wood posts rise to the roof. The wall to the west is lighted with a pair of one-over-one wood sash windows placed relatively high in the wall, followed by a single-leaf entrance that is flanked by two lower one-over-one wood sash windows. Two more windows of identical sash configuration continue to the west, followed by another single-leaf entrance also flanked by two windows. A smaller window, placed higher in the wall, leads to the two large rolling freight doors in that finish the western end of the elevation.
The northern elevation opposite is virtually identical, the only exceptions being the projecting telegrapher's bay and the set-back in the wall surface that occurs in the transition between the passenger section and the freight section. The western side of the telegrapher's bay is accessed via a central, single-leaf entrance with a transom; the eastern bay is lighted by a single, one-over-one wood sash window. Otherwise, the door and window openings are of the same placement and dimensions as those opposite.
The eastern elevation, beneath the porch roof, is lighted by two symmetrically-placed one-over-one wood sash windows with transoms. The western elevation is accessed via a large, central, tolling freight door with a single, narrow one-over-one wood sash window placed to the north. A loading dock projects just below the door.
Significant exterior details include the Italianate wood brackets that adorn the porch supports and the broad, spreading cornice around all four elevations; the concrete sills and lintels employed for most of the wall openings; and the exposed rafters that also run along the roofline of all four elevations.
Though now closed-up and unoccupied, the Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot in Camden is relatively well-maintained and in good condition.
View from southeast (1990)
