Former L & N Passenger Train Station in MS
Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot, Pascagoula Mississippi
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot, constructed in 1904 in Pascagoula, Mississippi, is a small railroad station typical of many similar examples throughout the country, but with them unique as part of a functional architectural form that was developed nationwide in response to a need created by the unprecedented phenomenon of the railroad. The Pascagoula Depot has particular importance in the history of that city's growth and development as a coastal resort area and thriving industrial and port community. The modern history of the communities along Mississippi's Gulf Coast is largely the history of the transportation facilities which have joined them to one another and to the port cities of New Orleans and Mobile. From the earliest days of settlement, the natural benefits of the Mississippi Coast have been recognized, both in terms of climactic and commercial advantages, but commercial and population growth could not begin in earnest until the railroad made it possible. Once the coastal railroad route was established, the stations built along the line became the focal points of burgeoning communities, serving as landmarks in the literal as well as the figurative sense of the word.
It was the New Orleans, Mobile, and Chattanooga Railroad Company, later known as the New Orleans, Mobile, and Texas Railroad Company, which finally realized the long-popular dream of an overland coastal link between the two major port cities. And, it was recognition of the current and potential popularity of the Mississippi Coast communities that induced the railroad company to build its new route along the coast rather than along an inland route which would have offered fewer obstacles to successful completion. Construction of the new railroad was begun on October 29th, 1869, and on November 21st, 1870, the first railroad service between New Orleans and Mobile was made available to coastal traffic. In 1880, the Kentucky-based Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company leased the Gulf Coast route as part of a large-scale program of southern expansion, and on October 5th, 1881, the L & N purchased the coastal railroad outright.
The peculiar necessities connected with building a railroad through the swamps and marshes of the Gulf Coast led the NOM&C to establish, as one of Pascagoula's first industries, a creosote-treating plant that was the first of its kind in this country. The innovative plant built for this purpose in the early 1870's brought Pascagoula and the NOM&C Railroad national recognition and the establishment was evidently still considered a major asset when it was specifically mentioned in the otherwise generally worded deed transferring all coastal railroad properties to the L & N in 1881. Thus, in a very direct way, "the story of Pascagoula's entrance into a new era of industry and commerce … really began with the building of the New Orleans, Mobile, and Chattanooga Railroad".
Lumbering had been important to the Pascagoula community before the coming of the railroad, and in fact, had probably had something to do with the decision to establish the new creosoting plant there; but the new transportation capabilities the completed railroad provided stimulated a lumbering boom that led Pascagoula through its first surge of real industrial growth. According to Jay Higginbotham, by the time the Pascagoula lumber boom had hit its peak in 1891, the Mississippi community was the second-largest lumbering port on the Gulf of Mexico, an achievement that would have been impossible without railroad facilities. By the time the lumbering boom began to wane in the early years of the twentieth century, the community of Pascagoula had grown and diversified to the point that it could support itself, with the indispensable help of the railroad, by various other means. In 1905 more than half of the L N Railroad's gross receipts from operation resulted from passenger and freight traffic on the company's mere 73.74 miles of coastal Mississippi track, indicating the railroad's obvious impact on Mississippi's Gulf Coast communities, not the least of which was Pascagoula.
A good deal of the impact that the railroad had on Pascagoula was relative to the immense tourist trade that now found it a simple matter to travel by rail from northern and midwestern states to enjoy, in the words of a Pascagoula promotional brochure of 1900, "the balmy gulf breezes" of "the ideal seashore resort". In the same brochure, the "enterprising and accommodating" L & N Railroad advertised special reduced rates for "Tourist's Tickets" and "Home-Seekers" Tickets" to Pascagoula, demonstrating the importance of coastal tourist traffic to the railroad company. to growing Pascagoula, the "Home-Seeker" was just as much to be courted as the tourist. Opportunities were advertised for the businessman and manufacturer as well as the "Health and Pleasure Seeker" on "this remarkable stretch of wave-laved seashore".
The growth associated with such advertising began early in Pascagoula, revolving almost entirely around the railroad. It was surely no accident that in 1871, only one year after its inclusion on the new coastal thoroughfare, the growing community of Pascagoula was made the county seat of Jackson County, superseding the inland town of Americus in that capacity. What is now the City of Pascagoula had been, at the time of the railroad's construction, a scattered variety of neighboring settlements that proved an inevitable source of confusion to railroad surveyors who sought to assign a name to the passenger station they planned to construct on the east side of the East Pascagoula River. They finally solved their dilemma by, choosing a name that had no relation to any one of the existing communities. The surveyors called the new station Scranton, a name which the county seat and surrounding community adopted and kept until it later officially merged with the adjacent and closely related community of Pascagoula. The two towns joined to form the City of Pascagoula in 1904, significantly the same year in which the existing L & N Depot was constructed. Thus, while certainly not the first depot to serve the surrounding communities, the current depot was the first to officially bear the traditional local name of Pascagoula rather than the arbitrarily assigned title of Scranton.
Advertisements in local newspapers of the 1870s and 1880s mention "the railroad depot" repeatedly, usually as an obvious landmark by which to designate the location of a certain business, hotel, or other concern. But references to the station itself only place it "near the courthouse", so it is not certain that the present depot sits on the exact site originally allotted for that purpose. However, the existing depot is one block from the courthouse, and a railroad station is known to have been on the present depot site by at least 1895, as it is indicated on an early L & N Railroad map. Consequently, it seems more than likely that the 1904 depot was constructed on or at least very near the site of the original Scranton station.
Alterations that were made to the 1904 depot in 1908 did not substantially affect the appearance of the building but rather enlarged the structure to accommodate the growing numbers of passengers making use of the facility. The enlarged station continued to serve the booming ship-building community of Pascagoula until passenger service was discontinued there in 1971. The L & N Railroad Company retained ownership of the property until March 15th, 1974, when it was purchased by the Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pascagoula. The building continued to provide office space for local L & N officials, however, until July 1974, when a new L & N office facility was completed.
The Pascagoula L & N Railroad Depot stands vacant at the present time, and plans for its future are uncertain, but local preservationists hope that the local landmark can be revitalized and continue to serve as a focal point in the Pascagoula community. Urban Renewal plans which were formulated in 1971 and revised in 1972 call for the demolition of the structure to allow for parking or light industry development on and surrounding the site, but further revision of these plans now seems likely.
Building Description
The Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot in Pascagoula is a small, one-story, rectangular frame structure set on a brick foundation ventilated with iron grates. Topped by three sections of hipped roof accented with dormers, gables, and wide, bracketed eaves, the building, exclusive of a ten-foot overhang, generally measures 144' x 19'. An off-center forty-foot section projects two feet on the north and south elevations and includes a further three-foot gabled projection along the north elevation, or trackside facade, providing a prominent entrance to what was originally the agent's office. Divided by one single and three double door openings on the facade, and by three door openings on the opposite elevation, the exterior walls are sheathed in three horizontal sections, beaded vertical boards covering the upper and lower portions and clapboards sheathing the central seven-foot section corresponding to the uniform height of all window openings.
The slate roof is crowned at the ridge by two interior brick chimneys and four louvered dormers created in pairs by two ridges, each resting perpendicularly on one end of the main roof ridge. The slope of the hipped roof is broken at both ends and along the facade by a total of three louvered gab] the more prominent facade example featuring ornamentation in the form of rec} tangular boards applied to the surface in a geometric pattern. The peaks of all gables and dormers are ornamented with wave-like finials, evidently of cas metal, whose shape is repeated in reverse by the ogee pendants which terminate the triangular framed wooden brackets supporting the eaves. All windows in the building are of the sash type with large single panes, and all doorways are topped by single-pane transoms.
The interior of the building is divided into four simple chambers with thirteen-foot ceilings, the largest being the easternmost "General Waiting Room," as it is labeled on a 1918 drawing, which measures 18' x 56', not including the spaces enclosed for bathroom facilities. The remaining three rooms measure 24', 32'6", and 27'6" in length, moving west through the build} ing, and were originally used, respectively, as "Agent's Office", "Colored Waiting Room", and "Baggage Room". The main ticketing window, various counters, and some waiting room and railroad office furniture remain in the building, all spaces except the general waiting room have been converted to office use with the minimum amount of alteration.
While original drawings of the 1904 structure are not available, plans for alterations to the Pascagoula passenger station made by L & N engineers in 1918 indicate that the original appearance of the building was not substantially changed. The General Waiting Room was enlarged by the addition of 29 feet of space at the east end of the building, but the appropriate end gable and dormers were moved rather than replaced, as were the old corner brackets, framing timbers, and whatever doors and windows could be utilized. Other changes recorded in the plans were relatively minor and included the enlargement of the Agent's Office, re-flooring an old baggage room and incorporating it into an enlarged Colored Waiting Room with new bathrooms, and building a new chimney in the new wall between the office and the Colored Waiting Room. Several door openings were closed and new ones cut according to the new interior spaces created, but the old doors continued to be used in the new openings.
Exterior looking west from southeast corner (1974)
