Missouri - Pacific Railroad Depot, Nashville Arkansas

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Nashville, Arkansas experienced its most significant period of growth as a community after the Civil War, when the gradually increasing attempts of local farmers to diversify their crop production (growing, in addition to the traditional staple of cotton, such other cash crops as peaches, alfalfa, corn, onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers, not to mention the raising of livestock for commercial sale) combined with the arrival of the railroad to transform this formerly small, rural town into a bustling commercial center and the county seat of Howard County.

The Missouri-Pacific Depot in Nashville was constructed as part of an extensive building campaign initiated by the railroad during the second decade of the twentieth century. The Missouri-Pacific undertook a statewide effort to upgrade and modernize its Arkansas depots during this period, and the depot in Nashville was part of this improvement plan.

The depot was demolished sometime prior to July 1999.

The Missouri-Pacific Railroad Depot in Nashville is a single-story, brick masonry freight and passenger railroad depot designed in the Mediterranean style that was popular for this building type during the first quarter of the twentieth century, but especially with the Missouri-Pacific Railroad. The Latin cross plan, the red ceramic tile gable roof and the projecting eaves supported by wooden knee braces in the gable ends are all typical of this style as it was commonly employed by the railroads for their depots. Three small brick chimneys, each coped with cast stone, rise through the ridge of the gable roof, which is covered with red ceramic tile. The brick walls are supported upon a continuous, cast concrete foundation.

The western or front elevation is composed of the gable end of the intersecting gabled bay dividing the side wall of the main gable roof section of the building. The projecting gable end is lighted with two symmetrically-placed two-over-two wood sash windows set in segmental arch window openings. A single, central louvered oculus vents the attic in the gable peak. The side wall to the north is lighted with two windows flanking a single-leaf entrance with a transom. The side wall just to the south of the projecting bay features a window and door grouping identical to that to the north, and the southern end of the elevation is finished with two large rolling cargo doors. The eastern elevation opposite -- facing the railroad tracks -- is virtually identical to that opposite, with the exception of the additional single-leaf door between the southern cargo entrances and the side windows in the projecting telegrapher's bay.

The northern and southern elevations are both quite similar. Both are gable ends, featuring projecting eaves and decorative knee braces above a fenestrated brick wall. Each elevation is punctuated by a central grouping of three arched vent openings placed centrally in the gable peak, with symmetrically-placed, arched window openings below. The sole difference between the elevations is that the northern elevation is lighted with three windows, and the southern elevation is lighted with only two.

Significant exterior details include the decorative wood knee braces used to ornament the cornices on the gable ends; the texture lent by the clay tile roof; and the arched and oculus openings throughout.

The Missouri-Pacific Depot in Nashville has suffered remarkably few alterations. Unlike many such depots, this structure retains its original clay tile roof and most, if not all, of its original window sash.

(1992)

(1992)

(1992)