This Train Station in Tucson AZ Has Been Converted into a Restaurant

El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Depot, Tucson Arizona

Date added: March 01, 2025

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The El Paso and Southwestern (EPSW) Railroad Depot was built during the boom period of growth in Tucson's central business district. It was a competing railroad system, albeit short-lived, to the Southern Pacific railroad, whose depot was located on the opposite side of the central business district.

The railroad was built by the Phelps-Dodge Corporation, whose copper mining operations defined the economy of southern Arizona at the turn of the 20^th Century. Because of its own disagreements with the Southern Pacific Railroad regarding rates and access to their mining centers, Phelps-Dodge decided to create its own railway system to support their increasingly profitable mining operations. Originally, Phelps Dodge had intended to build the rail line from El Paso to San Diego with the Arizona section passing through Bisbee, up the San Ped Valley to Benson, then to the Gila River Valley to Phoenix, completely by-passing Tucson. Tucson's Chamber of Commerce, as it had often done before, intervened by meeting with Phelps-Dodge president, Walter Douglas, who had assumed Tucson did not want the competition of another railroad. The City of Tucson offered Douglas a series of depot sites, and a right-of-way through the city at a cost to the city of $75,000. In turn, Phelps Dodge returned their investment in the form of a new YMCA building, and the construction of a city park located between the Depot and the central business district at corner of Congress and Granada (where the DeConcini Federal Courthouse now stands). At its completion, the Depot was considered a landmark building in pubic transportation for the Southwest and served as a symbol of community progress for Tucson.

The original cost of the Depot was $45,000, the adjacent Freight Building cost $30,000, and an additional $5000 allocated to landscape the city park. In 1924, Southern Pacific bought up the EPSW lines and eliminated the need for two train depots in Tucson. Although the Depot building was mostly abandoned, only used for storage, until 1978, the Freight Building continued to be used until 1935 when rail traffic was finally consolidated onto the Southern Pacific lines and the depot buildings were retired from active service. The Freight Building was later converted into a hospital, Carl Hayden Community Hospital, for railroad employees and functioned in that capacity until 1974.

The building is a typical example of the Beaux-Arts Neo-Classical architectural style, identified by its bilateral symmetry in plan and balanced symmetry in elevation, topped off with a domed skylight as a transition to the sky at the building's highest point Also, the use of classical features such as entablatures, columns of the classical orders and the trabeated support system in the porticos, reflects the Neo-Classical articulation in the building's detailing. The architect, if any, is not known, and the entre complex could have been designed by engineers employed by the railroad, which was a common practice.

The Depot building lost its context when the original Freight Office/Hayden Hospital was demolished in 1979 and Douglas Park soon thereafter. Whereas the Park and Depot complex served as a terminus for the Congress Street business corridor, the urban renewal program of the early 1970s has now isolated the lone Depot building from the central business district through the construction of the La Placta Complex, a downtown Hotel and the DeConcini Federal Courthouse. The building itself has also lost its bi-lateral plan symmetry when the building was remodeled as a restaurant in 1978 through the addition of a kitchen and dining room addition on the west side of the building. The original western entry porch (opposite of the restaurant entrance) has been enclosed with a glass greenhouse roof but maintains all the decorative features of the original entry porch. The 1978 adaptive re-use of the building also included the enclosure of the original porticos with floor-to-ceiling dark reflective glass recessed from the trabeated openings. The porticos were converted into offices (south side) and an additional dining room (north side). On the interior, the rotunda, stained-glass skylight, the voluminous depot waiting rooms and the exposed materials of the baggage room (currently the bar) have been maintained with only slight modification. Original materials, including exposed concrete floors, terra-cotta trim, limestone columns and decorative plaster have all been maintained.

Building Description

The El Paso and Southwestern (EPSW) Railroad Depot is located at the western edge of Tucson's central business district, about 1000 feet east of Interstate 10. The Depot property, once a multi-acre parcel with a complex of two buildings and a park, is now a "frying-pan" shaped parcel of less than one acre set back from West Congress Street with its main access as the "handle" of the frying pan. It is located on the east side of an abandoned set of railroad tracks that once operated the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad. The original complex, completed in 1912, formed the western terminus of the central business district at the corner of Congress and Granada, with the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot forming the terminus at the eastern end of the central business district. Included in that complex was a Freight Office to the southeast of the Depot (later converted to the Carl Hayden Hospital), that, with the Depot building, framed the triangular-shaped Douglas Park, named in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Douglas, who commissioned the Park The Park and surrounding grounds were originally landscaped and contained a variety of unusual plants. There was a fountain in the center of the Park as a converging focus and hub for six concrete footpaths that integrated the Depot and the Freight Building and provided a pleasant entry sequence from the train to the city.

The Depot building is divided into three sections reflecting its original purpose: a central terminal, measuring 106' x 57', and two porticos, each measuring 45' x 57', at either end. The original central terminal contained two entries, each recessed inside a porch: one facing the tracks and the other facing the Park, creating a bi-lateral symmetry in the overall building composition. The current building has one central entry, located on the east side facing the parking lot and while the other entry porch still is intact, it is now enclosed in glass "greenhouse" addition connecting the original building to the restaurant kitchen addition on the west side. Between the two entries is a rotunda that acts as the orienting space into which all pubic rooms open and is covered by a stained glass dome with a protective skylight above. The height and visual impact of the stained glass dome creates a striking interior space that provides one of the stronger attributes of the building.

The space on the north side of the rotunda was originally divided into two waiting areas: men's and families to the west, and the eastern room for women traveling alone. The wall between the original men's and women's waiting rooms, on the north side of the rotunda has been removed to create a large dining area for the current restaurant. An interior balcony projects on the east and west walk, originally used as an office area for employees. The balcony areas, originally only accessible by narrow circular staircases, are now accessible to the pubic through L-shaped stairways from the dining room The balcony extends along the exterior walls and join in a large mezzanine space adjacent to the rotunda. Two separate chandeliers suspended from the ceiling in each of the waiting rooms were replaced with a single chandelier in the center of the combined room The space on the south side of the rotunda, originally the baggage room and a series of ancillary functions, has been converted into a bar. Throughout the various remodeled restaurant spaces, new ceiling fans are suspended and connected by a series of pulleys and belts to allow all the fans to operate simultaneously and provide a visual connection between all the public spaces.

The original porticos that flanked the main terminal were open on three sides and used as baggage processing areas. Currently, both portico spaces are enclosed with a wall of reflective glass, recessed from and preserving the integrity of the original trabeated (column and beam with entablature) openings. The south portico is currently leased space and the north portico is incorporated into the restaurant as a separate, but connected dining area. Large fountains once marked a visual terminus beyond the north and south porticos as well as on the east side within Douglas Park only the south fountain still exists, enclosed in a walked patio adjacent to the south office space.

The building exterior is sheathed in buff-colored brick with a classical entablature and other ornamental features of terra-cotta tile. The central terminal has a pitched roof covered with red Mexican channel tile. The flat portico roofs and deck areas surrounding the skylight are composition roll roofing on wood deck. Each of the original main entries is flanked by four large columns of Indiana limestone. Similar, but smaller, columns continue around the portico. The two-story openings behind the entry columns are arcuated with tera-cotta trim Openings to either side of the rectilinear main entry are also trimmed with tera-cotta.

The building's structure is a combination of steel trusses and beams supported by brick bearing walks. In the current bar space, these materials are left exposed, as they were originally, as that space was not open to the pubic. The other interior walls are plastered brick accented with wood, tera-cotta, limestone and plaster trim The floors are exposed, polished concrete and the roof structural members and soffits are plastered. The windows, doors and balcony are trimmed with dark wood that accents the plaster walls and ceiling. The protective skylight is of wired glass panes in an iron frame supported by a low brick drum.