Michigan Central Railroad Dowagiac Depot, Dowagiac Michigan
The Michigan Central Railroad was chartered as a privately owned corporation in 1846 to purchase the state-owned Detroit-St. Joseph railroad line that had been constructed only as far west as Kalamazoo before funds ran out and to complete it to Chicago. The first Michigan Central train entered Chicago in 1853. In 1854, when the Great Western Railway was completed between Niagara Falls and Windsor, Ontario, the Michigan Central became part of an important direct line between the East and Chicago. The Michigan Central became and remained Michigan's most prosperous railroad line and the main Detroit-Chicago line was the keystone of that prosperity.
The Dowagiac depot was one of several substantial depot buildings constructed by the Michigan Central beginning in the 1880s. The railroad received frequent praise in the annual reports of the Michigan State Commissioner of Railroads during these years for the maintenance of its trackage and the constant upgrading of its facilities. The 1892 report, for example, contains this glowing depiction of the line:
The new Dowagiac depot was the third built in Dowagiac. The first, constructed in 1849 when the railroad that gave Dowagiac its beginning was built, was replaced with a larger one in 1872. That depot was described by the turn of the century as having "grimy walls" and unsightly grounds. The city felt that a new depot was overdue in view of the condition of the old and the growing size and importance of the city to the railroad. The Dowagiac Daily News of July 11th, 1901, claimed that the railroad "obtains more shipping from this point than any other city on the road outside of Kalamazoo, Jackson and Michigan City" because all of Dowagiac's business, including Dowagiac's chief export, Round Oak stoves, was handled by the Michigan Central. In Battle Creek and other larger towns, the railroad business was divided up between several competing railroads.
The news that the Michigan Central would be building a new depot in Dowagiac broke on July 9th, 1901. The July 19th, 1901 Dowagiac Daily News reported the arrival of the first carload of material, sewer tile, for the new building. During the last week of July, William Cauffman, working for moving contractor Frank Hartsell, moved the old depot a short distance to the northeast to make room for the new one. Cauffman was involved at the same time in moving the old Van Buren County Courthouse, now the Paw Paw City Hall, to its present site from the courthouse square on which the present courthouse building was subsequently built.
The July 29th News reported the arrival of the contractor, M. J. Rogers of Detroit, and provided a description of the building from the plans that Rogers brought with him. The description appears to match the building as constructed with one exception: the walls of the baggage room building were to be constructed of common stock brick rather than the "grey-mottled Roman … pressed brick" to be used in the passenger station building's walls. As built, the baggage room walls employ the same brick as that specified for the rest of the depot. This change, the October 2nd News explained, came about through "the forethought of Contractor Rogers."
During the course of construction of the exterior walls, one of the stonemasons, George McFarland, was arrested by the county deputy sheriff. McFarland, described as the former treasurer of the stone cutters' union in Chicago, was, according to an article in the February 22nd, 1902 News,
McFarland reportedly jumped bail in Chicago and vanished. He was finally apprehended in Boise, Idaho, and returned to Chicago on February 21st, 1902. What was the final disposition of the case is not reported.
The depot's slate roof was completed in early December and work began on the interior finish. On March 11th, 1902, the News reported that Rogers had completed his contract that morning and that the painter, Louis Parker, had also completed work. The electric lights, telegraphic equipment, and furniture were not yet installed. A concrete walk, which would surround the building, was also not yet installed. The depot opened on June 16th, 1902. Quoth the News:
The building remains in partial use as a passenger depot on Amtrak's main Detroit-Chicago line.
The Dowagiac depot is one of a number of substantial and architecturally distinguished depot buildings constructed by the Michigan Central Railroad between the mid-1880s and early 1900s to replace inadequate, older depot buildings. It is not clear how much of the design work for these replacement structures the Michigan Central did in-house, but it is clear that the more elaborate stations, at least, were designed by professional architects not on the railroad's own staff. The railroad retained the prominent New York architect Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz to design large city stations constructed in Detroit in 1882-83, in Chicago in 1886, and in Kalamazoo in 1887, and Rogers & MacFarlane of Detroit to plan the imposing Battle Creek station constructed in 1887-88. Many, if not most, of the line's depots constructed over a thirty-year period beginning in the mid-to-late 1880s were the work of Spier & Rohns, a Detroit architectural firm whose principals were Frederick H. Spier and Will C. Rohns. Spier & Rohns reportedly did much of the architectural work not only for the Michigan Central, but also for the Grand Trunk and Pere Marquette lines as well in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Documented and undocumented, but likely, examples of the firm's depot work include the following:
Michigan Central, Ann Arbor, 1886-87
Michigan Central, Dexter, 1886-87
Michigan Central, Hudson, 1886
Michigan Central, Grass Lake, 1887-88
Michigan Central, Standish, 1889
Michigan Central, Lawton, 1890
Michigan Central, Niles, 1891-92
Michigan Central, Lansing, 1901-1902
Grand Trunk, Lansing, 1902-1903
The Dowagiac depot is so similar in its exterior and interior detailing and in the materials used to other turn-of-the-century Spier & Rohns depots such as the Michigan Central and Grand Trunk depots in Lansing that it is almost certainly the work of the firm.
The July 29th, 1901, Daily News noted that M. J. Rogers, the contractor for the Dowagiac depot, had "constructed the Niles depot, also nearly every other building of this nature the company has erected for the past 20 years." The Detroit contracting firm of Adams & Rogers is known to have built the Chelsea (1880), Dexter (1886-87), and Standish (1889) depots and Rogers & Ufford built the 1891 Lawton depot.
Building Description
The Michigan Central Railroad (now Amtrak) depot stands on the northwest side of the former Michigan Central main line between Detroit and Chicago at the east edge of Dowagiac's central business district. The depot is a one-story, limestone-trimmed, brick building with a Neo-Elizabethan exterior. It is comprised of separate hip-roof passenger station and baggage room buildings, the station having a hip-roof porte cochere and adjoining two-story, crenelated tower, linked by a platform with a gable-roof canopy supported on decorative, round, metal columns. The passenger station part has a glassed-in entry porch, fronted by a hip-roof porte cochere with open timber work Tudor-arch detailing, and adjoining two-story, square-plan, crenelated tower projecting from the center of the building's street facade. In the corresponding, central location on the passenger station's track side is a semi-octagonal, hip-roof projection that houses the ticket office. Hip-roof dormers pierce the passenger station roof and a tall sawtooth-brickwork chimney stack thrusts from the station roof on the street side near the baggage room end of the building. Banks of square-head windows with stone mullions and transom bars pierce the facades of both buildings. The depot stands on its original site, with its street facade facing northwest on Depot Drive. Parking areas adjoin the building on the street side. A brick platform fronts the building at trackside.
The depot's main building, the passenger station, has ground dimensions of eighty-four by twenty-eight feet. The baggage room building has ground dimensions of twenty-three by twenty-eight feet. The buildings are separated by a sixty-nine-foot-long canopy-covered walkway. The buildings' exteriors are finished in rock-face, coursed-ashlar, Bedford limestone up to window-sill level and in reddish-brown Roman pressed brick above. Beltcourses, window and doorway trimmings, stonework banding in the ticket office exterior, caps on the tower crenalations, and chimney trimmings are also of Bedford limestone. All windows contain leaded glass. The roofs, originally clad in greenish slate, are currently clad in red asphalt shingling.
The passenger station interior, finished in dark stained southern cypress, retains most of its original finish. The central entrance opens into the center of the passenger station building, directly facing the semi-octagonal ticket office. The rectangular space in the building was divided into men's and women's waiting rooms, from each of which a doorway led to the tracks. Paneled wainscoting eight feet four inches in height surrounds the room and fronts the ticket office. The base of the tower contained a women's toilet, while the men's was attached to the baggage room.
Today part of the southwestern half of the passenger waiting room area remains in use as a waiting room and contains two banks of back-to-back wooden benches. Men's and women's restrooms have been partitioned off from the room's southwest end, with the paneled wainscoting reused to form the partition. Most of the northeast half of the waiting area now serves as a Michigan Secretary of State branch office. While modern counters and equipment have been installed, the room's basic finish remains intact.