Building Description Santa Fe Railroad Station, Brownwood Texas

The Santa Fe Railroad Station in Brownwood, Texas, is located on the block bounded by Washington Avenue on the north, Adams Street on the east, the Santa Fe main line on the south, and Depot Street on the west. The facility comprises two separate buildings which are joined by a covered loggia. The Harvey House Restaurant and Hotel was built in 1911 at the east end of the property in the Prairie style. The passenger station at the west end of the property was built in 1909, also in the Prairie style. The two buildings complement each other and form an interesting facility.

The brown bricks which serve as the structural system as well as the facade composition were brought from Coffeeville, Kansas. Typical Prairie style motifs in the form of horizontal bands of bricks, trackside canopies, wide eaves with supporting brackets, hipped roofs of Spanish tiles, and windows of low and wide proportions grace the facades of both buildings.

The Harvey House building is rectangular in plan with dining rooms on the first floor and hotel rooms on the second floor. The dining rooms consist of a coffee shop, a restaurant, extensive kitchen facilities, and a tea room. Most notable of these rooms is the tea room with its Prairie style stenciling on the walls and ceiling. The room is located on the east end of the building with large windows and doors on three sides, thereby giving the room a light effect. Door and window frames, wainscoting, and plate rails are constructed of English oak.

The passenger station is a symmetrical building, rectangular in plan, with a two-story telegrapher's tower in the center. An interesting motif is the use of Romanesque arches for all exterior openings. Particularly fine detailing is found in the brick arch of the telegrapher's tower. The interior is divided into three large sections as is clearly defined in the exterior configuration. The waiting room, on the east end, is a large space measuring approximately thirty by sixty feet with a ceiling height of sixteen feet. A horizontal band of English oak divides the walls in equal sections, thereby separating the brick surface on the lower portion from the plaster above. A heavy plaster cornice of many planes graces the ceiling of this room. The central space in the two-story tower houses the telegrapher's bay, the ticket counter, and the rest rooms with offices on the second floor. The west end of the building houses the baggage room, the Railway Express Agency, and colored waiting room in three bays of equal size.

Exterior landscaping on the east end of the building consisted of a fenced flower garden with trees and shrubbery. All walkways and streetpaving are covered with Coffeeville bricks which complement the exterior composition.