Missouri Pacific Railroad Depot, Helena Arkansas

Date added: April 10, 2025

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Constructed in 1915, the Missouri-Pacific Depot in Helena is one of Arkansas's finest examples of the architecture which characterized that company's construction in the early days of the twentieth century. Of Craftsman design with Classical Revival influences, the depot was built on the site of an old Arkansas Midland Railway Company depot, and is the city's best representative of the railroad industry, which once rivaled river traffic to make Helena one of Arkansas's transportation centers.

The city of Helena (population 9,000) has always been known as Arkansas' only port on the Mississippi River. Located fifty miles south of Memphis, the town grew before the Civil War as a shipping outlet for the products of the rich alluvial farms of the Arkansas' delta. During the 1870's the lumber industry discovered the vast pine forests of southern Arkansas, and railroad lines began laying miles of track to facilitate the movement of raw and milled lumber. With its reputation as a transportation center already established, Helena became the location for as many as five railroad lines by the turn of the century, providing an alternative route for rail traffic by bypassing Memphis and its high transfer fees.

The Arkansas Midland depot at that time occupied the site of the present Mo-Pac structure. In 1901 Arkansas Midland was purchased by railroad baron Jay Gould and became part of his St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern line. The latter company was eventually merged with Gould's other holdings to form the Missouri-Pacific. By World War I, Mo-Pac was Helena's major rail line, although various short lines also provided service, and a ferry connection was available to the Illinois Central. (The Illinois Central depot is the only other railroad structure remaining in Helena.) Lumber shipment continued, and rail traffic grew due to the wartime boom in agricultural markets, particularly cotton and Arkansas's newest money crop, rice.

Helena became the outlet for the disbursement of this grain from farms on the prairie to points all over the country. Helena continued to grow and prosper until the onset of the depression (census figures show population went from 9,000 in 1920 to 17,000 in 1930) and the railroad was at that time a major facet of its economy. Although railroads continued to operate in Helena, the effects of the Depression were lasting, and the prominence of the rail industry never equaled its zenith of the early twentieth century.

Construction on the Missouri-Pacific depot probably began in 1915. During the course of its transfers of ownership, the original Arkansas Midland depot was enlarged and remodeled, but 1914 Sanborn Fire Insurance maps show plans for a new structure to be located a few yards north of the original building, and 1918 maps show the depot completed in its present form and owned by Missouri-Pacific. The MoPac depot boasts a two-story facade, with the upper level being used for offices and administrative purposes, a reflection of Helena's importance to the Missouri-Pacific line and the company's importance to the city. The hipped roof and wide eaves that distinguished Mo-Pac architecture of the period are very much in evidence. The building is virtually unaltered, and is one of Arkansas's best remaining examples of popular-design railroad architecture.

A once-booming transportation center, Helena is now suffering economically as a result of the agricultural depression and competition from Arkansas's fast-growing trucking industry. The Missouri-Pacific depot was sold to the Union Pacific railroad in 1985. It is now boarded up and the track next to it is being removed, although current plans are for the city to acquire the building and restore it for use as a museum.

Building Description

Located on the southeast corner of Missouri and Natchez Streets at the southern end of the downtown area and paralleling the levee, the Missouri-Pacific Depot in Helena is a fine unaltered example of early-twentieth-century depot architecture in Arkansas. Constructed ca. 1915 of red brick with limestone accents, this two-story building exhibits detailing from the Craftsman period as well as subtle Classical Revival influences. Originally designed to serve as the regional headquarters for the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad, the depot has a two-story northern section, which is more finely detailed than the more functional one-story freight section of the building. The entire structure is surmounted by a hip roof covered with composition shingles and features large decorative knee braces supporting the wide overhanging eaves. Gabled and louvered attic vents occur midway across the one-story section and above the south (rear) elevation. The building has a steel frame structure and rests on a poured concrete foundation. Lintels, sills, belt and string courses are all of limestone blocks. The bricks used in the exterior of the building have rounded edges and the mortar employed is reddish in color. A brick platform surrounds the building and continues approximately seventy yards south of the rear of the structure. The Missouri-Pacific Railroad sold the property to the Union Pacific Railroad who has recently boarded up the building on the first level.

The facade of Helena's Missouri-Pacific Depot is three bays wide and faces north to the downtown area. The northern two bays of the building are two stories tall. This section exhibits more detailing than the one-story section of the structure. This two-story section features a widely overhanging hip roof supported by paired brackets and decorative rafter ends at the eaves. The northern (facade) elevation displays a centrally located entrance covered with a small suspended shed roof. The shed roof is covered with barrel tiles, which indicates the original roofing material of the entire building may have been of this material. The entry is flanked by a pair of elaborate console brackets and symmetrical projecting bays with arched windows. Windows throughout the building are wooden casements with rectangular panes grouped in pairs and surmounted by a horizontal pane. This arrangement is coupled to fill one sash. The arched window retains this arrangement with the added fan light above. Outlined by radiating brick voussoirs with stone springers and keystones, these more elaborate windows display radiating muntins in the fan light. A limestone belt course divides the upper, lower and basement levels. A limestone string course accents the red brick facade at the sill level and the simple cornice above the arched windows is also of limestone blocks. Windows on the upper level retain the same arrangement, but are smaller, which further emphasizes the horizontal orientation of the facade.

The east elevation runs parallel to the levee upon which the train tracks run. This elevation contains two bays of the two-story section, three bays of baggage section and eight bays of freight section, for a total length of thirteen bays. Originally, the freight and baggage sections were separated by a breezeway, which must have been filled in during the early history of the building because the decorative brick that characterizes the rest of the structure was used in the enclosure. The mortar is a lighter red color than the rest of the building, which emphasizes this enclosure. Several of the original batten freight doors and paneled entry doors on this elevation remain.

The southern (rear) elevation is two bays wide with a freight door in both bays. This elevation retains one of its original batten doors. A wooden loading dock occurs across this elevation.

The west elevation retains the same divisions as the east elevation. However, the freight bays display wooden loading docks and transom areas which are flanked by smaller casement windows in the same sash arrangement as the rest of the building. Due to the sloping of the site, the depot building is set on a raised poured concrete foundation, which is most visible on this elevation.

A brick-paved platform wraps around the building and abruptly ends at the loading dock area on the west elevation. This platform continued around the north and east elevations and continues down the tracks in a southward direction for approximately seventy yards.

The interior of the building retains its historic room arrangement. The lower level of the two-story building retains its segregated waiting room areas. These rooms retain their decorative floor tiles but have suffered paneling and lowered ceilings. The baggage room is accessed from the waiting room closer to the tracks. A large metal cage is located in the baggage area. One bathroom is located off the waiting room closer to Natchez Street. Another bathroom is located in the baggage area. Access to the upper level is through a simple unadorned staircase, the entrance of which is located on the outside of the building. The offices are arranged around a central hallway and retain many of their historic features including ceiling height, chair rail, baseboards and plaster walls.