This Train Station in Marseilles IL was Converted into a Clinic

Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Depot, Marseilles Illinois

Date added: January 04, 2025

West side and south trackside facade (1994)

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The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Depot, built in 1917, provided passenger, freight, and baggage service for Marseille's citizens, businesses, manufacturing companies, and travelers. It is located near the center of the 99 miles of track of the Rock Island & LaSalle Railroad, which would become the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad. This section parallels the I & M Canal from Chicago to Peru.

This railroad's success brought canal passenger service to an end just as U.S. Route 6 and Interstate 80 drew off the railroad's passengers. The depot, with its well-maintained and carefully preserved facade, recalls the high water mark of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad.

The city of Marseilles is located just five miles south of Interstate 80 and almost equidistant between Chicago and Peoria. It has a population of 4,900 and stretches for 2 miles along the Illinois River, its natural southern boundary. Sandstone cliffs form a bluff to the north. Before the time of railroads and paved roads, the river was the highway and was much used by Native Americans, early explorers, and settlers. Marseilles is at the head of a three-mile-long set of rapids historically referred to as "the Grand Rapids" and the "Rapids of Maninumba." Lovell Kimball came to the rapids from Watertown, New York in 1833. Kimball, a very energetic and active businessman, knew that the Illinois & Michigan Canal Bill had been passed and that the canal would eventually reach this location. He hired a surveyor to lay out a townsite just above the rapids. He chose the name Marseilles for his town under the impression that the French city of the same name was an industrial center of the type that he hoped to develop. The plat was recorded on June 3^rd, 1835. It was subsequently twice revised to allow right-of-ways for both the canal and the railroad.

In 1851, the Rock Island and LaSalle Railroad asked the Illinois legislature to amend its charter by authorizing a change in its corporate title. It also asked for an extension of its rails from the head of navigation of the I & M Canal (LaSalle-Peru) to the city of Chicago. To appease canal commissioners, the railroad offered to pay the I & M board of trustees a toll on all commodities, except livestock, that the canal could carry. The tolls would be equal to the canal rates and were to apply to shipments destined to or from any point between Chicago and a point 20 miles west of LaSalle. The tolls would be paid only when the canal was navigable. The railroad also buried in its lengthy charter language that stated its obligation to pay any tolls ceased by the terms of its act of incorporation as the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad on June 1^st, 1851. The canal commissioners sued, but by October of 1852, only a small section of right of way remained to be graded between Morris and Marseilles. In less than 6 months the builders had thrown up fill and had readied for rails all but a little less than 8 miles of the whole 99-mile stretch between Chicago and Peru. It was a truly remarkable building record.

The rails crossed Main Street in Marseilles along a 100-foot right of way during February of 1853. Freight and passenger service soon followed. A wooden depot and freight house were built south of the tracks and just east of Main Street. Harrison "Kit" Knickerbocker, a Marseilles resident, was one of the Rock Island's first engineers. He drove the "Accommodation", an early morning train that stopped at 7:45 AM enroute to Chicago.

The Chicago markets became readily accessible to local buyers and sellers. Early morning eastbound trains, like the "Accommodation," carried farm produce and livestock into the city. Afternoon westbound trains delivered retail goods and mail-order items to merchants and heavy freight to local manufacturers. By 1900, two rail spurs crossed the canal on swing bridges to deliver raw material and load roofing material and boxboard from the industrial yards along the Illinois River.

In 1911, the Marseilles Hydro Station went into operation. It was built by the Northern Illinois Light and Traction Company, a predecessor of Illinois Power. All material and equipment was delivered to the site by the Rock Island. The plant provided power to the northern division of one of the world's best-known electric railways, The Illinois Traction System, or the Interurban. The tracks of the Chicago & Peoria line through Marseilles never did reach either of those destinations before the line closed in 1934. The interurban station was a common transfer point to the Rock Island line for passengers and freight bound for Chicago.

In January of 1917, Marseilles residents won a 40-year battle with the Rock Island Railroad for a new station. Judge Carpenter of the U.S. circuit court ordered the railroad to erect a new station in town at a cost not to exceed $20,000 dollars. T.S. Peak, a Chicago builder, won the bid and surveyed the land in March, aiming for a June 15^th completion. The city council vacated a portion of Washington Street to build the new depot. The city also agreed to pave Washington Street east to Aurora Street to improve access.

The new station opened quietly on Monday morning, August 6^th, 1917. The work of moving from the old station started Sunday afternoon when George Fisher, the telegraph operator and ticket seller, began to move his effects to the north side of the tracks. The old wooden station, in use since 1867, was purchased by Wedron J. Wanmer and moved to Young Street to become a dwelling.

The first ticket sold in the new station was purchased by Miss Fannie Lee, a student from the University of Illinois, who had been visiting with Miss Winifred Montgomery.

The official dedication of the new station was held Thursday evening, August 16^th, 1917. Public ceremonies were held in the presence of hundreds of citizens, followed by a banquet and more speeches at the Thompson Hotel. The Marseilles Military Band led the procession from the hotel to the station. Once there, railroad officials praised the building as being the finest along the entire line.

In 1922, on the seventieth anniversary of its founding, Rock Island officials placed a tree and plaque near the depot commemorating the services of Harrison Knickerbocker. The twelve-by-ten-inch bronze plaque set on a three-foot concrete pillar is still located on the south facade and reads in part:

IN AFFECTIONATE MEMORY OF
HARRISON KNICKERBOCKER
WHO BY HIS INDUSTRY COURAGE AND LOYALTY
THROUGH EVERY VICISSITUDE SIGNALLY AIDED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
CHICAGO ROCK ISLAND AND PACIFIC RAILWAY
INTO A GREAT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM DEVOTED TO THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Terry Simmons, editor and owner of the Marseilles Plaindealer the city's newspaper, boasted of the city's growth and importance with the publication of a souvenir booklet. In Marseilles, Illinois. A Live Manufacturing City, Simmons bragged that, "No city between Joliet and Moline ships as many tons of manufactured goods on the Rock Island Road as does Marseilles. In fact Marseilles ships out a larger tonnage of manufactured goods than any city of equal size in Illinois." The new depot, built to handle the increased passenger, freight, and baggage demand was part of this new growth and development in Marseilles which included such manufacturing concerns as the Plaindealer Printing Plant, Howe & Davidson cardboard box factory, Cresent Paper Company, General Roofing Company, Manufacturers Coal Company, O'Neil Implement Company, Harrow Manufacturing Company, F. J. Jones Garter Company, a concrete block making factory, and several cigar factories.

The Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of Marseilles indicate a population increase from 3,200 in 1913 to 4,000 by 1929. During this period the stationmaster was coordinating rail shipments along spurs that led to the Crescent Paper Mill, Certain-Teed General Roofing Manufacturers, O'Neil Agricultural Implement Company, Marseilles Grain & Supply Company, the G.V. Shaughnessy Grain Elevator, National Sicilate & Chemical Company, and tanks belonging to the Standard Oil Company of Indiana.

Passengers and travelers on the railroad could stay at the Shultz Hotel on Young Street southwest of the depot during the middle 1910s or stay at the newly erected Thompson's Hotel at the southwest corner of Young and Main Streets.

The Rock Island freight service to Marseilles was always busier than its passenger service. It was the major reason that Howe & Davidson was able to build the largest factory building between Chicago and St. Louis here in 1921-1922, when they constructed their eight-story paper pulp mill with material delivered to the site by rail. East of Howe & Davidson was the Crescent Mill Carton Factory. It was later purchased by the National Biscuit Company. For more than fifty years the nine-story factory was owned by the National Biscuit Company. Nabisco produced, printed, and shipped all their carton and boxboard from Marseilles. Today, as Federal Paper, it is still the largest employer in town. All its shipping is now done by truck.

The Allender Motor Company, a Ford dealership from the early 1920s through the mid-1930s was located on Washington Street just west of the depot. Mr. Allender took regular delivery of autos directly from Detroit in special boxcars that held four autos each. The autos were rolled down swing-out ramps attached to the boxcar and pushed down Washington Street to the garage for final assembly.

C.B. Seales, director of the Seales-Campbell Funeral Home adjacent to the Allender Motor Company, did not maintain an extensive casket inventory. Clients would make a selection from the display models, and Seales would phone the order to the manufacturer in Chicago. As long as he called before noon, the requested casket would be delivered to the depot before 5:00 PM that same day.

The commercial district extended north from the Illinois and Michigan Canal along Main Street three blocks. Businesses such as dry goods, grocery, drug, bakery, jewelry, confectionary, harness, furniture, and hardware stores were aligned along both sides of Main Street and used the depot for the shipping and handling of merchandise.

From its 1917 opening until the end of World War II, most residents recall the depot as the telegraph office. Here, all telegraphers were also ticket agents. Through the years, numerous children were employed to stop in after school to deliver telegrams around town. Many such trips were made between the depot and Nabisco. Both world wars saw an increase in passenger service. The incredible number of workers at the "Prairie Shipyards" in Seneca dramatically increased passenger service during World War II as men and women used the train to get back and forth between Marseilles and Seneca. These were the depot's busiest years. By the war's end, the Rock Island Railroad was debt-free for the first time. The post-war rise in automobile use brought about a corresponding decline in passenger service.

In the early 1950s, regular local passenger service was discontinued. Freight service was maintained into the 1960s. All editions of the Chicago daily papers were dropped at the depot by passing passenger trains that also picked mailbags off a trackside hook without stopping. A track maintenance crew worked out of the depot until it closed in 1974.

The adaptive reuse of this building has saved it from further deterioration while providing space for the only doctor still practicing in Marseilles. The building is again available to the citizens it once served in a different capacity. Since its reopening, the depot hosts an average of 100 visiting patients per week. Many recall it as being the start of their first trip to the city, or to school, or to battle. The depot's well-preserved facade continues as a poignant reminder of a time when the Rock Island line was a "mighty fine line."

Building Description

The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Depot is a one-and-one-half-story building located on the north side of the former Rock Island Railroad just east of Main Street in Marseilles, Illinois. Since its construction in 1917, it functioned as one of the many stops along that railroad until 1974 when the line ceased operation. The Rock Island Railroad abandoned the building, and then sold it privately in 1984 when it was remodeled and served as a restaurant until 1988. In 1990, all the restaurant fixtures were removed and the building was again abandoned. The current owners acquired the property in 1993 and converted it into a modern medical clinic. The depot retains much of its exterior original appearance.

The depot has a rectangular plan, approximately 90 feet by 25 feet, with central projecting bays on the north and south sides. The central bay on the south functioned as the ticket office. The north bay contained public restrooms. The west wing held one large common passenger waiting room. The original 15-foot high plaster-on-mesh ceiling in this room was found collapsed onto the floor in 1993 when the building was purchased by the current owners. An arched brick passageway connects the west and east wings. The south wall of this passageway contains the ticket window and the north wall held an inset water fountain. One-third of the east wing contained a baggage room and the remaining two-thirds was a freight area.

The majority of the original materials are present and are in good condition. Reddish brown brick in a stretcher bond pattern and white stucco make up the two major components of the exterior facade. A band of Indiana limestone caps the brick all around the building and serves as a base for the stucco. A concrete base lies below the brick wall on the lower half of the depot, while brick quoins around the doors and windows add decoration to the white stucco on the remainder of the building. Doors and window trim are currently dark green. the green gabled-on-hip tile roof has had replacement tiles of different colors added over the years as original tiles have been damaged. The chimney exits through the ridge about in the middle of the east wing. The brackets, rafters, and eaves are white, as well as the gutters and downspouts. Minor changes have occurred to better facilitate existing uses. For example, the ticket window on the south central bay has been converted into the main entry. A concrete ramp has been added, starting at the east end of the building and ending at the new door.

Beginning at the east end of the north elevation which faces Washington Street is a wooden freight door that allowed trucks and wagons to load and unload freight. The door is original and used to swing up and in, but is now in a permanently closed position. Three, four-light rectangular windows serve as a transom above the door. To the west of this door is a triple set of windows with a central six-over-one window and four-over-one windows on either side. All windows in this building are set on Indiana limestone sills. The north central extended bay has a small four-over-one window facing east, a four-over-one window, a brick panel, and a four-over-one window facing north, and another small four-over-one window facing west. Above the brick panel and facing north, the bay is crowned by an arched triple set of windows with a central nine-light window and five-light windows on either side. Past the central bay and in the west wing are two, six-over-one windows on either side of a triple set of windows which has a central six-over-one window and four-over-one windows on either side.

In the west elevation facing Main Street is one triple set of windows with a central six-over-one window and four-over-one windows on either side. The lower south corner of the large central pane has the word "winders" scratched into its inside, probably by a young, bored passenger-in-waiting testing a new pocket knife.

Trackside on the south elevation, beginning at the west end, are two, six-over-one windows on either side of a central triple door and window group. Three concrete steps lead up to the original pane-over-panel oak door that opens inward. A three-light transom tops the door with four-over-one windows on either side of the door. These windows sit on pine panels that extend down to the plinth. The south-central bay has two small four-over-one windows facing west and east. From the west, four concrete steps lead up to the main entrance, a pane-over-panel steel door set in the center of the south bay. There is a six-light window above the door and six-over-one windows on either side of it. This bay is also crowned by an arched triple set of windows with a central nine-light window and five-light windows on either side.

Continuing east along the south elevation, to the right of the south bay is the original pane-over-panel oak door that opens inward to the former baggage area. A three-light transom tops the door with four-over-one windows on either side of it. These widows sit on pine panels that extend down to the base. To the east of the baggage door is the opening for the freight door. The original wooden half-doors swung outward. These are gone and the opening is filled with vertical tongue-in-groove wood siding. The arched transom above this opening with its 12 small lights is still intact. Going down the ramp and turning north along the east elevation, is one opening centered in the wall. This was originally a window as seen in the 1917 photo of the building. Sometime in the early 1904's, this window was lengthened down to the base and made into a door. This door opened onto a wooden freight platform that was set on the paving brick along the entire width of the east facade. The current owners removed that platform and closed the opening with the same vertical tongue-in-groove siding that was used to fill the south-facing freight door.

The interior walls are red brick in a stretcher bond pattern below the white plaster. All original oak framing remains intact. Floors are concrete and are covered by the original terrazzo tiles in a diamond pattern. The west wing, containing the passenger waiting area of approximately 40 feet by 24 feet has been divided into 6 clinic rooms. These rooms were constructed around the existing windows, and all added walls are covered with gypsum board and are not load-bearing. The outside wall of each room retains the original brick below plaster. The new ceiling height throughout the clinic is approximately 12 feet and consists of textured gypsum board. The south bay ticket office is now the patient waiting room and the connecting passage, with its oak-framed ticket window, has become the business office and reception window. New ADA plumbing fixtures were added to the original restrooms in the north bay. Both restrooms retain the original brownish gold brick under white plaster with hexagonal terrazzo tile floors. The original baggage area immediately east of the central bays now contains current patient records and office computers and equipment. The ceiling and red brick walls here are identical to those in the clinic area. The unfinished concrete floor in the east wing freight area was covered with a raised floor approximately 2 feet higher than the original. This area now contains all electrical and mechanical systems, old patient records, office supplies, and medication samples. Approximately 10,500 of the original paving bricks surrounding the depot have been relaid; most of these are trackside along the southern exposure.

The setting of the depot remains trackside. CSX Transportation maintains an active freight service with 8-10 trains daily passing the southern facade. South of the depot the ground is open to Lincoln Street. This area, between the depot and the City Hall/fire station complex on the south side of Lincoln, is used for community parking and annual carnivals and circuses. The northern exposure abuts Washington Street approximately one block east of the Post Office and Main Street. The property extends to the east of the depot approximately 200 yards, bounded by Washington Street on the north, the tracks on the south, and Aurora Street on the east. Nearly 100 yards of this is the current clinic parking area.