Former Passenger Train Station in Decatur IN
Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad Depot, Decatur Indiana
- Categories:
- Indiana
- Tudor
- Railroad Facility
- Passenger Station
The first railroad constructed through Adams County was originally organized as the Cincinnati, Union City, & Ft. Wayne Railroad, but was later called the Cincinnati, Richmond, & Ft. Wayne Railroad. Adams County purchased $150,000 in stock to bring the railroad to the county. It was constructed in about 1853, however, it was not until Christmas day in 1871, after the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad took over the line, which the first passenger train operated. The railroad's route went through the county from north to south through the communities of Monmouth, Decatur, Monroe, Berne, and Geneva. A Decatur native, Judge David Studebaker, was particularly instrumental in the development of the railroad. He was a member of the railroad's board of directors into the early 1900s and platted the town of Buffalo in 1853 in anticipation of the railroad. Buffalo consolidated with Alexander to become Geneva.
A number of industries began to locate on the west and southwest sides of Decatur near the Grand Rapids & Indiana and the Erie Railroads which crossed on the southwest side of the city. The industries began to propel the city to significant growth during the late 1800s. These industries included J. Hart's City Mills, J. Niblick & Sons Elevator, P. Baker & Brothers Wooden Stirrup Factory, Eagle Manufacturing, H. Hart's Foundry, A. T. Lynch's Hub & Spoke Factory, Creamery Packaging Co., Decatur Stave & Heading Co., Adams County Lumber Co., L. D. Adams Stave Factory, and G. Christen's Planning Mill & Sash, Door, & Blind Factory. Most of these industries would have used the railroad to being in raw materials, such as lumber, and to ship their finished products to outside markets. The Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad constructed a wood frame depot in Decatur on 7th Street just south of Monroe Street by the 1880s, just north of the depot and only a few blocks west of the downtown commercial district.
The Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad was largely profitable in the late 1800s due to the lumber industry of northern Michigan and shipment of timber to southern markets. But by the 1880s timber was largely depleted and the railroad needed other means to be profitable. By the late 1890s and early 1900s the railroad developed a marketing plan to increase passenger and tourist travel by raising awareness of the resort communities in northern Michigan, particularly at Petoskey, Bay View, Oden, and Mackinac Island. In 1902, the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad produced several marketing pieces including folders and booklets that promoted resort communities near the line's northern terminus and placed them in communities along its route. Trying to appeal to outdoor sportsmen, the railroad branded itself as the Fishing Line with connections to fishing and other outdoor recreational resorts in the northern part of Michigan.
Likely in an effort to attract passenger service as part of its larger marketing plan, the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad began a facilities improvement plan which replaced several of their older depots along its route. This began no later than 1900 when the large, new Union Station was constructed in Grand Rapids, Michigan. New passenger depots were also built in Cadillac and Petoskey, Michigan between 1900 and about 1903. Combined with the Grand Rapids depot, the three were mentioned in a report given to the St. Louis Convention of American Park and Outdoor Art Association & American League of Civic Improvement by the Railroad Improvement Committee in 1904. The association sought out higher standards in civic improvements and noted facilities, such as the ones mentioned, for quality architectural and landscape design. The report made mention that generally railroads were implementing a higher grade of architecture in their facilities with attention to sanitary regulations, and parks were being created by landscape designers surrounded new depots.
The Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad also constructed at least three other depots during the first few years of the 20th Century in an effort to improve its passenger facilities. These included a passenger and freight depot in Mendon, Michigan (wood frame, c. 1901) and passenger depots in LaGrange (wood frame, 1901) and Decatur (brick, 1902), Indiana. A new depot was also constructed at the intersection of the Grand Trunk & Western and Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroads in Vicksburg, Michigan in 1903. Although it is unclear which of the two railroads took the lead in building the depot, the architect, Williamson & Crow of Grand Rapids, was the same firm commissioned to design the depot in Decatur, Indiana. Of the depots owned by the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad, the Vicksburg depot is most similar in style to the Decatur depot. Similar features include shaped parapet gable walls, cross gables, and a combination of hipped and gabled roofs. The depot in Cadillac, Michigan also had a lower cross gable with shaped parapet wall.
Plans for the new depot in Decatur were announced in April, 1902 with anticipation that the building would be completed by summer of the same year. However, surveyors with the railroad were not on site until June and for an unknown reason work stalled through the summer and was not substantially resumed until September. Work on the depot was completed in February, 1903 after which time the contractors, Mann & Christen of Decatur, turned the building over to the railroad for use. The old wood frame depot was relocated to the west side of the railroad tracks and was used as a freight station. The railroad also constructed a new water tower in January, 1903. The freight station and water tower are not extant.
The design of the new depot in Decatur was described as beyond the wildest expectations of the city, a model of beauty, a credit to the city, and a monument to the railroad. The floors were to be maple throughout except in the toilet rooms where tile was used and where an enamel tile wainscot was to be installed. The building was to be lit by electricity, incorporate an air ventilation system, and be completely fireproof due to its brick and stone walls and slate roof. The estimated cost was $7,500.
While the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad had four passenger trains running to and from Mackinac City by 1907, profits from riders were not sufficient to support the railroad and its investments. As passenger ridership declined, the railroad began to see losses by the end of the 1910s. In 1918, the railroad was purchased by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which had been a substantial shareholder since 1871. Both passenger and freight service continued on this line of the Pennsylvania Railroad until about 1957 after which time the depot was closed to passenger service. The Grand Rapids & Indiana's depots in other Adams County communities had long been shuttered by this time and are not extant. In 1980, the railroad from Decatur to Richmond was abandoned. Decatur's other depot on the Erie Railroad was also razed. An electric railroad, known as the Ft. Wayne & Springfield Traction Line, operated between 1907 and 1927. The traction line used part of the Boch Block in the downtown district as its passenger depot.
By the time of its construction in 1902-03, builders and architects employed for and by railroads had all but codified the specifications for small town depots. The Decatur, Indiana depot for the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad has all the classic features of a depot from the height of the rail era.
First, a raised brick platform allows passengers, personnel, and baggage or freight to be kept off the ground and dry. The depot's basic functional areas are arranged in a mostly linear pattern; baggage, operations, and passenger waiting areas are oriented to the rail line and have separated entrances for clear access to the train being served. The office is centralized for ease of control of the station, and has an operator's bay, for direct line of sight to incoming and outbound trains and to monitor activity on the platform. For passengers, there is a covered porch as well as a room. Though not the usual long, covered platform, the porch and deep door hoods allow passengers protection from the elements. Interior finishes reflect the hierarchy that railroads hoped to communicate to the public. Passenger waiting rooms are the best finished, as here in Decatur; rail employee areas are finished with functional bead-board walls and ceilings; and baggage rooms have no finish, bare brick in the case of the Decatur depot.
For the exterior, Williamson & Crow departed from the strictly linear massing associated with rail depots. The "town" side that faces North 7th Street and the downtown has cross gabled massing, to accommodate the interior restrooms and a corner porch. The massed plan of the depot allows for a more complex architectural treatment, with prominent gable ends, on the "town" side of the building. Depots often reflected popular architectural styles, since rail lines wanted to offer an appealing and substantial image to passengers and towns. Rarely did railroads wish to take the risk of attempting to set a trend. The architectural style of Williamson & Crow's design is not tied to any one style, but, overall, shows influence from the newly emerging Tudor Revival style. The use of fractable gables is seen on many depots from the 1890s; other depots on the Grand Rapids & Indiana "Fishing Line" also feature brick construction and similar gables, but most examples on the Fishing Line have simpler massing and feature round arched windows and doors that relate to Romanesque Revival influences. Others have the more typical massive hip roof common to 1880s and 1890s depots, which could shelter both building and outdoor platform. None have the integrated porch, complex massing, and fractable gables with decoratively treated attic vents of the Decatur depot. The stepped surrounds of the attic vents, especially the north vent, with its quatrefoil surround, contribute to the Tudor Revival feel of the building, as do the heavy-linteled, rectangular window openings, and in general, the use of red brick and contrasting light stone. The king post truss hoods that rest on arched braces on the west (rail) side of the depot can be interpreted as late Stick Style elements, even down to the chamfer work on each wood member. This element also resembles Tudor half-timbering and the hammer-beam interior work often seen inside many later Tudor Revival churches. The operator's bay was clearly a necessary, functional part of the depot. By centering this functional element within an extension with decorative fractable gable, and using bands of stone on the bay, the architects made it into a Tudor Revival stylistic feature.
Tudor Revival was a not a common style in 1902, when Williamson & Crow designed the Decatur depot. Most early examples in Indiana date to the end of the first decade of the 1900s and are residential (Edmund B. and Bertha Ball House, Muncie, 1907; Glossbrenner House, Indianapolis, 1910; Van Camp Mansion [demolished], Indianapolis, 1906). Though Americans had been introduced to English medieval architecture by the popularity of both the Gothic Revival and the Queen Anne style, builders and architects often used details from the pre-Renaissance era in both profusion and without context when planning structures in these 19th century styles. Colleges appear to have provided the earliest, large-scale, specific examples that purposely drew on English medieval architecture. In open hopes of conferring the same ancient cloak of wisdom that their overseas collegiate counterparts had, American colleges began to commission buildings that directly emulated the Late Gothic architecture of the great colleges and universities of Britain. Bryn Mawr's Pembroke Hall, built in the 1890s, is often cited as the first of many. Many of these college buildings emulated late Medieval or Tudor-era buildings, and so were a manifestation of Tudor Revival. American educational buildings in the style are often called "Collegiate Gothic."
An active firm proficient in period revival styles like Williamson & Crow probably knew of the style from periodicals featuring schools, or they may have seen images of eclectic depots like Danville, Virginia's Southern Railway Depot (1899), with its unusual crow-stepped Flemish gables and "Flemish Renaissance Revival" exterior. What is known is that despite its early date of 1902-03, the Decatur Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad Depot is a locally rare and early example of Tudor Revival design.
History of Decatur
Decatur was laid out in 1836 by proprietors Thomas Johnson and Samuel Rugg. A portion of land was donated to Adams County to provide for a county seat of government. The population in 1850 was 231 but increased, due in large part to the railroad, to 4,142 by 1900. The town was surveyed by Jacob Hofer who constructed the first residence, a log cabin, in the town. The first store was also a cabin kept by Henry Reichard, who moved to the village in 1838. A plank road was constructed through town in 1852, which included a bridge over the St. Mary's River on the east side of town and connected the town to other markets. Decatur incorporated as a town in 1853.
With the coming of the railroad, the town experienced growth in both commerce and industry, and a new courthouse was built on the public square between 1872 and 1873. Decatur incorporated as a city in 1882. By the late 1880s, street and sidewalk improvements were made and during the early 1890s the city experienced rapid growth, necessitating the construction of water and electric plants. In 1903, a library and post office were constructed, followed by several other social club buildings and other civic improvements. Of special note was the Knights of Pythias Hall, constructed in 1907. While the building is no longer extant, it had a front gable with a shaped parapet nearly identical in design to the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad Depot, possibly the work of the same contractor or drawn upon for inspiration.
Building Description
The Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad Depot was constructed between North 7th Street and the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad tracks west of Decatur's downtown. The building was constructed by the railroad in 1902-03 in the Tudor Revival style with features of other popular styles of the period, in brick and stone trim. The small building has typical rooms associated with passenger depots: passenger waiting area, baggage room, ticket office, and other smaller support rooms. The building was restored in 2015 and is located on a substantial, open lot. A platform and sidewalk composed of paver bricks surrounds the perimeter of the building.
The Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad Depot is located between 7th Street on its east and the railroad tracks on its west, just north of the T-intersection of 7th and Madison Streets. The building's front facade faces slightly northeast and its back wall faces slightly southwest. For purposes of this document, the front facade shall be referred to as the east or front facade, the back facade shall be referred to as the west or back facade, and the building's sides shall be referred to as the north and south facades.
The Grand Rapids & Indiana Depot is one story with a steeply-pitched gable roof. The building has orange-colored brick walls with stone foundation and trim, side gabled walls, and a lower cross-gable on the front and back of the building. All brick is laid in stretcher bond, all limestone is dressed to a smooth finish. A stone sill course creates a belt course around the perimeter of the building. The building has a combination of different wood window muntin patterns including 3/1, 3/3, 2/2, and 2/1. The windows have stone lintels. The building has six-panel wood exterior doors. Each of the side and cross-gables have crow-stepped parapet walls with stone coping. The bottom of the gable walls have square stone blocks at each corner, which is repeated approximately halfway up the rake where the parapet coping steps around the square blocks. Wood louvers enframed by stone surrounds are centered in each of the gable walls.
The roof is covered with asphalt shingles; originally, the roofing was slate. The wide-overhanging eaves on the front and back of the building are supported by exposed rafter tails. The ends of the rafter tails are sawn with a cusp and lobe. The underside of the eaves are covered with beaded boards. Aluminum gutters and downspouts are located on the front and back of the building.
The front facade has a porch on its north side. The porch has a low-pitched hipped roof supported on its outside corner by a brick pilaster. The pilaster has a stone foundation, belt course, and cap. The porch roof is supported by a wood lintel that rests on stone corbels set into the building's walls. A pair of entry doors is in the back wall of the porch. The entry doors have two panels in their bottom halves and two windows in their top halves. A lower cross-gable projecting out from the building is south of the porch. The cross-gable's front wall has a 3/3 window on its north side and a 2/2 window on its south side. The windows are short and set higher on the facade well above the belt course. The windows have plain stone sills and plain heavy lintels. The gable end vent has a beveled oval opening with stepped stone surround. The north wall of the cross-gable is void of windows. A small room with a hipped roof is on the south side of the cross-gable. The front wall of the room has a door on its north side and a 3/1 window on its south side. The south wall of the room has a 3/1 window on its west side, the depot's stone belt serves as the windowsill for these two windows. The eaves of the room are slightly flared. The south side of the front facade has a pair of baggage doors centered in it. A large brick chimney with cornice-like stone cap rises above the roof south of the cross-gable.
The north and south facades are nearly identical. A pair of windows with transoms are located in the walls. The north facade has 3/1 windows with transoms divided into three panes of glass. A narrow stone lintel is located between the transom and top of the window. The belt course serves as a sill for both windows. The gable vent on each side is a quatrefoil-shaped opening in a stepped stone surround. The south facade has short 3/3 windows with transoms divided into three panes of glass. The windows on the south facade have individual sills and are set higher on the facade, well above the belt course. A crimson-colored metal sign with "DECATUR" in gold lettering and trim is centered at the base of the gable wall on the north and south facades.
The back facade faces west and the railroad. The north half of the facade has a pair of passenger doors with 3/1 windows flanking the doors. A cross-gable with a three-sided bay is slightly off-center to the south. The bay, which functioned as a depot manager's observation point, has cut-away corners with windows in each wall. The bay's front wall has a 3/1 window with transom divided into three panes of glass. The bay's other two walls have 2/1 windows with transoms divided into two panes of glass. The building's lower belt course serves as sills for the operator bay's windows. A stone lintel is between the transoms and windows, at the same level as a second belt course on the bay. The transoms have stone lintels that also appear like a belt course near the top of the bay. A thin stone frieze course is at the top of the bay's walls. The bay has a low-pitched hipped roof.
A depot manager's door is located south of the cross-gable and a pair of baggage doors is south of the manager's door. A short 3/3 window is south of the baggage doors. Like the other short windows in the building, it is set up higher on the facade, well above the belt course. Gabled porch roofs are over the back facade's baggage and passenger doors. The porch roofs are composed of decorative king's post trusses with chamfered edges that are open on their front walls. The trusses have sawn rafter tails that match those that support the building's eaves. The trusses rest on wood brackets. The horizontal member of the bracket has chamfered edges and an elaborate profile butt-end. The brackets are supported at their ends by large, arching braces springing from the wall just above the belt course. A wall sconce with a porcelain-enameled shade is located above each pair of doors.
The depot is divided principally into three major sections: passenger area in the north part of the building, office/ticket area in the center, and baggage area in the south part of the building. Ancillary support or service rooms are located within each division. The building has a basement which was used for coal storage and furnace under the passenger and office/ticket areas. The passenger and office/ticket areas have wood floors and plaster walls and ceilings that have been covered with drywall. A tall wainscot composed of vertical beaded boards with a top trim board is located in the ticket area, passenger area, and passenger waiting room. The windows and doors have wide wood casings with simple ogee trim. The windows that have transoms in the passenger and ticket areas have a wood panel between the transom and window. The interior doors have five horizontal panels.
The passenger area is a large room at the north end of the building with a pair of entry doors that lead to the porch on the northeast corner of the building. A second pair of doors leads to the train boarding area on the west side of the room. A partial wall once separated the passenger area from the ticket area; markings in the floor show where the wall was located on the south side of the passenger area. A small waiting room is off the southeast corner of the passenger area. The room has a wood bench with jig-sawn brackets against its east wall. The floor below the bench is angled up toward the outside wall where an opening was located from the basement to the exterior. A small bathroom is off the waiting room's south wall. The bathroom has wainscoting composed of subway tiles and its floor has new ceramic tile.
The ticket area features a three-sided observation bay with cutaway corners in its southwest corner. A small two-panel pass-thru door that raises up is located in the south wall of the ticket area. Wood shelves with jig-sawn brackets are under the pass-thru door, on each side of the wall. A door with four panels and a window is east of the pass-thru door; it leads to a small baggage clerk's room. Opposite the observation bay is a steel wall safe that opens to the north. North of the safe is a door that leads to the depot manager's office which features modern wood cabinetry and countertops. A small hallway and storage room are located off the office's north wall. The hallway leads to an entry door on the east side of the building and the storage room is lined with built-in wood shelving. The hallway has wainscoting composed of subway tiles and may have been created from a bathroom.
The baggage area is a large room in the south end of the building. Its exterior walls are unpainted brick, the floors are concrete, and the ceilings are composed of beaded boards. A pair of baggage doors is located in the east and west walls of the room. The door openings were fitted with a rolling track above them. The north wall of the baggage area is composed of beaded boards. A basement door and attic access hatch are in the north wall. A baggage clerk's room is located in the northwest corner of the room. The walls are composed of beaded boards. A door is in the east wall of the clerk's room and a window with four panes of glass is north of the door. A door leading to the railroad tracks is located in the west wall of the clerk's room.