Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad Depot, Mammoth Spring Arkansas
Mammoth Spring, Arkansas was named for the underground spring that surfaces at this location, forming the sole source for the Spring River (measuring 180 feet in diameter, the spring discharges a constant volume of 45,000 cubic feet per minute, regardless of season; it is considered to be the largest such spring in the United States). The earliest settlement in the area was located across the state line in Missouri, but the entire community largely relocated after the railroad came through in 1883.
With the arrival of the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad (a relatively small railroad that just dipped into Arkansas from Missouri to the north, and which later became part of the St. Louis and San Francisco, now called the Burlington Northern), the only railroad that traversed Fulton County, the Arkansas community of Mammoth Spring became one of the largest resort communities in this section of the Ozarks. By 1908, its tourist industry supported three large hotels, several boarding houses, an opera house, a mill near the mouth of the spring which produced 500 barrels of flour per day, a cotton gin, several churches, two local newspapers and several successful businesses.
Building Description
The Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis Railroad Depot in Mammoth Spring is a story-and-a-half brick masonry freight and passenger depot designed in the Queen Anne style that was dominant in 1885 when it was constructed. The depot plan is divided into three units, the largest of which is basically rectangular with a three-sided telegrapher's bay. The composition-shingled hipped roof is punctured by three gabled dormers and two differently configured three-sided, turret-like dormers, which most strongly reflect the Queen Anne influence, on the eastern and western elevations. A gable-roofed open breezeway connects the main passenger depot with the smaller square freight depot which is covered by a composition-shingled pyramidal roof. The breezeway is supported by square columns with unusual capitals that portray fish chasing a frog. Two brick chimneys rise through the roof ridge of the passenger section: one near the center of the section and the other near the western end. A continuous brick foundation supports the entire structure.
The southern elevation is divided into the freight section to the west, the open passageway next to the east, and the passenger section at the eastern end. The freight section is punctuated only by a central freight door. The open passageway is supported on a total of eight wood box columns, each of which supports a decorative capital that carries the roof plate. The wall of the passenger section is accessed via a central single-leaf entry and lighted by single and paired nine-over-one windows. The attic above features a central, broad-hipped dormer containing four windows that is flanked by two single, gable roof dormers that contain a single light each set below a wooden, arched overhang. The northern elevation opposite is accessed via three single-leaf, wood-paneled doors and lighted by single and paired nine-over-one wood sash windows set into both the wall and the three-sided telegrapher's bay. The attic above is vented by a large, three-sided hipped dormer placed directly above the telegrapher's bay and lighted by a gable roof dormer identical to the one seen on the opposite elevation. The passageway and freight section extend to the west, and are identical in appearance to that of the opposite elevation.
The eastern elevation is lighted by a pair of central, nine-over-one wood sash windows; the western elevation is lighted by a pair of single-pane windows, also placed centrally. The walls of the passenger and freight sections within the passageway are each lighted with central windows.
Several exterior details are worthy of note. Specifically, the hipped and gable roof dormers on the passenger section, with their variety of ornament; the paneled wood doors that access the passenger section; the simple, decorative exposed rafters that ornament the cornice; and most of all, the capitals atop the passageway columns that are decorated with an elaborate fish and frog motif.
View from the east (1990)
