{"id":615,"date":"2012-02-17T21:20:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-18T03:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=615"},"modified":"2012-02-17T21:20:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T03:20:56","slug":"a-history-of-the-joplin-union-depot-part-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=615","title":{"rendered":"A History of the Joplin Union Depot – Part V"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catch up on the previous installments of the history of the Joplin Union Depot here: Part I<\/a>, Part II<\/a>, Part III<\/a>, and Part IV<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Despite the progress made in December of 1910, work came to a sudden stop in the first week of January 1911 due to a snap of extreme cold weather.\u00a0 The approximate forty men at work on the depot building had to lay down their tools and watch the skies for better weather.\u00a0 The stop was short, however, and by the end of the month work was well on its way.\u00a0 1\/6th<\/sup> of the grading was left to be completed with only an estimated 25,000 yards of dirt remaining to be used to flatten the depot yards.\u00a0 Already 125,000 yards of fill dirt had been brought to the depot, mainly from cuts made by the Kansas City Southern between Joplin and Saginaw.<\/p>\n

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The hills and hollows of the Kansas City Bottoms were filled in or leveled off to create the needed flat surface for the depot's many tracks.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

By the end of February, it was believed that the permanent track would soon be laid.\u00a0 At the start of March, the Joplin Daily Globe<\/em> offered a glowing update on the Depot and at the same time, offered insight into how much the Depot meant to the people of Joplin.\u00a0 The paper elaborated on how a depot represents a city to the growing number of rail travelers, that in effect, the depot was the face of the community.\u00a0 The paper went on to describe the depot nearing completion:<\/p>\n

\u201cFew residents of Joplin fully appreciate the magnitude of the new union passenger depot, now rapidly nearing completion at the corner of First and Main Streets. Its location at the foot of a gently sloping hill, some 100 yards from the intersection of the streets, combines with the style of its architecture to make it appear smaller than it really is.<\/p>\n

The building is 300 feet long and 80 feet wide. These dimensions are more significant when it is remembered that 300 feet is the length of a city block\u2026.Built of reinforced concrete throughout, the depot is absolutely fireproof, and its walls are thick enough to bear the weight of several additional stories if they should be desired.<\/p>\n

The interior of the building is provided with every convenience that has yet been devised for the benefit of the traveling public. The structure is divided into three general parts, north and south wings, each 60 feet long, and the central section, 180 feet long. The wings are of one story only, while the central part, in which will be located the ticket office, general waiting rooms and other apartments, is of two stories, with a rectangular opening in the second floor. The general arrangement of the depot is very much similar to that of the union depot in St. Louis, although the interior is more beautifully decorated than its larger counterpart.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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The article also noted the presence of more waiting rooms, lavatories, check rooms, ticket offices, and even a \u201cgreat dining hall, 30 by 60 feet in extreme dimensions\u2026\u201d\u00a0 More so the paper proudly stated, \u201cNowhere in the country can there be found a depot site that offers greater opportunities for artistic effort.\u201d\u00a0 The Globe<\/em> wrapped up its article, \u201cIt is simply this \u2014 that when seven great railroads decide to spend a million dollars improving their facilities in a city, there must be something decidedly attractive about the city’s future\u2026And Joplin will soon have an entirely new \u201cface\u201d to show strangers who ride the trains past her gates.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, high ranking officials from the Santa Fe Railroad visited the depot site.\u00a0 A vice president of the company was quoted, \u201cI have heard so much regarding the Joplin depot that I was anxious to see it\u2026\u201d\u00a0 The article noted that the vice-president was pleased with the depot, its progress, and its location, which would serve as a stop for the railroad on its way south to Arkansas.<\/p>\n

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The depot nearing completion in March, 1911.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

The end of March raised expectations that the depot would be finished early.\u00a0 The filling of yards had been practically completed and work was underway for the installation of a round house approximately 100 yards northeast of the depot.\u00a0 The house would have three or four stalls, a \u201csmall affair\u201d the Joplin News Herald<\/em> noted before describing the turn table to be installed with it.\u00a0 The turn table, the paper described, \u201cwill bear up the largest engine that travels on any road in the United States.\u201d\u00a0 Technologically advanced, the table would be turned by machinery, not by hand.\u00a0 Inside the depot building, meanwhile, carpenters were busy with wood work that was to have a \u201cmission finish\u201d and, \u201clike the rest of the building, is artistic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet the eagle scream in Joplin,\u201d announced a member of the City’s council in April, upon a motion to hold a celebration to recognize the completion of the Depot on the Fourth of July.\u00a0 In connection to the decision of the City Council, Mayor Jesse F. Osborne appointed a committee to work with the city’s Commercial Club on planning the gala.\u00a0 A ball, it was believed, should be held that night inside the depot with officials from every railroad invited to attend while a celebration at Cunningham Park earlier in the day to celebrate the nation’s anniversary.\u00a0 Curiously, an article on the matter refers that it was not the custom of the city, but surrounding cities, to hold such celebrations on the Fourth.<\/p>\n

April did not pass without some mishap on the depot construction site.\u00a0 The first problem arose at the moment when the construction company believed the depot building virtually finished.\u00a0 It was then that they realized that either their construction or the design of the depot had failed to include space for the extremely important telegraph operators.\u00a0 As a result, two rooms were quickly added to either side of the ticket offices which required, \u201cworkmen\u2026tearing out big slices from the side of the concrete structure\u2026\u201d\u00a0 These slices were not the last.\u00a0 It was not until this moment that it was discovered that the two big doors for the large baggage room had been built on the wrong side of the depot building.\u00a0 As a result, new doors had to be built into the building lest \u201cteamsters would have been forced to risk their lives in driving over the railroad tracks at the east side of the depot.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hastily, doors had to be relocated from the south side of the depot to the north.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

With construction otherwise subsiding, thought was finally given to the preparations of the grounds of the depot.\u00a0 The churned soil, \u201ca sea of red clay, sticky as fish glue,\u201d would soon be transformed into flower beds and grass plots.\u00a0 The excavation of the hill upon which Main Street was to the west and Broadway to the south had resulted in an area described as \u201cgreat amphitheater\u201d and an article bragged, \u201cThis land\u2026will probably be used for a depot park\u2026\u201d and believed that no other depot in the country compared for its potential to be developed.<\/p>\n

The depot otherwise constructed, the News Herald<\/em> took time to praise the unique application of local materials in its building, primarily \u201cflint and limestone tailings secured from waste piles of several Joplin zinc and lead producers.\u201d\u00a0 Described as a \u201cfitting monument to the successful efforts of the pioneers,\u201d the concrete was deemed as hardy as a granite wall.\u00a0 The paper noted that while concrete had been used to great effect for sidewalks, curbs, retaining walls, dams, and culverts, it had never in Joplin’s history been used to such an extent in a building before the depot.\u00a0 Perhaps as motivation for future use, the article offered a recipe:<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the 22 parts in the concrete mixture used in constructing the station, 15 parts came from the Joplin mines, the exact formula being as follows: Mine tailings, 10 parts; Chitwood sand, 5 parts; River sand, 3 parts; Portland cement, 4 parts. Chitwood sand is the term used to describe the fine tailings from the sand jigs. In the mixture of the preparation for finishing the interior, the following formula is used: Portland cement, 2 parts; Chitwood sand, 2 parts; River sand, 1 part.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The article noted that the best tailings for the project came from mines stratified with steel blue flint.\u00a0 The paper also reminded the reader of how much the Kansas City Bottoms had been transformed by the depot’s construction, \u201cThe new station is built on filled in ground in a district which was a waste of sluggish waters, dotted with dense growths of willows.\u00a0 For years this tract, of which 30 acres have been taken over by the Union Depot Co., was the city’s dumping ground.\u00a0 A sickly stream, carrying filth of every kind, crawled through the swamp.\u00a0 The Depot Co. has changed the course of this stream so that it no longer touches the station grounds.\u00a0 Hundreds of carloads of boulders and dirt have been used as filler.\u201d \u00a0Another, later article also extolled the depot which, \u201coccupies a strip of filled in land that was an eyesore to the community for years.\u00a0 The building of the station and the filling in of the old swamp has converted a weed-grown bottom land into a beautiful valley, level as the floor of a dance hall.\u00a0 All the old swamps and marshes have been filled in, the course of Joplin creek changed so that it flows on the east side instead of the west side of the Kansas City Southern tracks, and when the grounds are finally finished and planted in blue grass, flowers and trees, they will be picturesque.\u201d The landscape was forever changed and in the opinion of the people of Joplin, for the better.<\/p>\n

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By the end of construction of the Union Depot, much of the Kansas City Bottoms had been physically erased from the landscape of Jopin.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

Then later in the month of May, the 19th<\/sup>, the first train was switched into the yards of the Depot, a string of work cars.\u00a0 Despite the presence of the cars, the Depot’s yards were not yet ready to receive passenger cars, and as officials quickly pointed out, the honor of \u201cfirst train\u201d is given to the first passenger train.\u00a0 The depot building was considered virtually complete, but contractors declared that the station would not be ready for a formal opening before July 1.\u00a0 The main work left to complete was the laying of permanent rails, and amazingly, still more grading work.\u00a0 Amongst the five railroads a growing rivalry had emerged to have the honor of the \u201cfirst train\u201d into the depot.\u00a0 A week later, the depot building itself was considered completed.\u00a0 By June 3, even the windows had been washed and the floors scrubbed and prepared for use.\u00a0 The woodwork had been completed and \u201cthe walls have received their last coat and the brass and iron railings fitted in position.\u201d\u00a0 Depot officials bravely declared that the station would open on June 15.\u00a0 Four days before the set date, an announcement was made, \u201cUnforeseen delays have been met in the track construction work,\u201d stated the President of the Kansas City Southern, J.A. Edson, and that, \u201cIt would be impossible to properly complete the tracks and station before July 1.\u201d Unsurprisingly, it was also mentioned that the depot building itself still awaited its furnishings and fixtures that were on order.\u00a0 Some furnishings had arrived in the form of furniture for the lunch room, such as kitchen cabinets, tables, and a \u201chuge gas range of the regular restaurant type.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of the delay, fifteen officials from the various railroads behind the depot met at the Connor Hotel.\u00a0 The meeting was for the purpose of discussing the various contracts between the railroads and to discuss the details of the depot’s opening.\u00a0 Station appointees had been made in the previous two weeks.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter, it was reaffirmed that July 1st<\/sup> would be the opening day of the depot.\u00a0 Comically, over a week later, it was realized that the Santa Fe railroad would not have a train available to enter the depot until July 15.\u00a0 Accordingly, the official opening was postponed yet again to July 20.\u00a0 However, the depot would accept trains before then.\u00a0 In preparation for the celebration, former Missouri Governor David R. Francis was invited to be the guest speaker. And, like the continually shifting opening day, the invitation fell through when a telegram alerted the organizers of the celebration that Governor Francis had departed from St. Louis for the summer and would not return until fall.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Depot construction had spurred construction elsewhere.\u00a0 Across the street from the depot on Main Street three buildings were under various states of construction.\u00a0 J.C. Jackson was the owner of one and had erected a three story building at a cost of $20,000.\u00a0 It was hoped the lower two floors would be home to a restaurant and the third a hotel.\u00a0 On the north side of Jackson’s site, Charles W. Edwards owned a lot and planned to build a four story building.\u00a0 The excitement of new buildings was quickly to be overshadowed by an even more exciting event back across the street.<\/p>\n

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One of many ads placed by the railroads in the Joplin newspapers to alert travelers of the pending opening of the depot.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

On the night of July 1, 1911, and under the \u201cfiery salute\u201d of \u201cskyrockets and torpedoes,\u201d the headlight of Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad train No. 83 \u201cflashed around the curve at the north end of the depot\u201d and pulled into the Union Depot at 10:30 pm (\u201cexactly on schedule time\u201d).\u00a0 An engineer, perhaps P.J. Nagle, responded with a tug on the steam whistle which shrilled to the cheers of over 2,500 spectators.\u00a0 The Katy Railroad had secured the honor of being the first train into the union depot.\u00a0 Crowds of railroad officials mingled together and shared welcomes and congratulations, while Joplinites \u201cextended cordial greetings to the crew and passengers of the epoch-making train.\u201d\u00a0 An article conveyed the sensation of all present, \u201cEveryone seemed to feel that he was personally concerned in the event and took a part in the celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n

The honor of the first tickets sold went to Mrs. A. McNabb, a wife of one of the depot telegraph operators, and then immediately after to H.A. Adams, a traveling salesman from Kanas City.\u00a0 The event of the first tickets, which began approximately at 11 o’clock on Friday night, was retold a day later by the News Herald<\/em>, \u201cBoth were anxious to secure the first ticket, but Dave Joseph, ticket agent, with the wisdom of old King Solomon, divided the honors by passing out the two tickets at the same instant.\u00a0 He shoved one over the counter with his right hand, the other with his left.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day before the arrival the Depot had been a scene of organized chaos as depot employees and officials had moved into offices and set to work preparing for business.\u00a0 Amongst them were most likely employees of Brown Hotel & News Company, such as F.P. Leigh, the general manager, who was in charge of running the dining room and lunch counter.\u00a0 Leigh was also assisted by a \u201ccorps of pretty girls.\u201d\u00a0 Meanwhile, the formal opening was currently set for July 20, still.\u00a0 The highly anticipated Fourth of July celebration had also failed to coalesce.\u00a0 Officials in charge of Cunningham Park had protested the planned use of the park and the City Council immediately had surrendered.\u00a0 Perhaps from unreported blow back, the park officials changed their minds, but the City Council’s chief proponent of the celebration, Councilman Phil Arnold, had resigned his place on the city’s planning committee and the idea of a Fourth of July celebration was unceremoniously set aside.<\/p>\n

An important arrival at the Depot a week later was a new clock.\u00a0 The Globe<\/em> described the Chicago made timepiece: \u201cThe clock is seven feet high and will be run by compressed air, which will be made by a motor power.\u00a0 It is said to be one of the finest clocks in any station in the west.\u201d\u00a0 Surprisingly, the location of the clock had yet to be decided and so the \u201cenormous timepiece\u201d was left crated for at least a day until the question of its location was decided.\u00a0 The main furniture had arrived a week before the arrival of the first train.\u00a0 A visitor to the Depot would have cast their gaze on beautiful Mission furniture described as such:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026consignments of massive oak have already arrived and more is coming. This will be the heaviest and most attractive furniture in any depot in the Southwest\u2026The lunch room has been furnished and is now waiting for the opening to begin work. It is fitted with an elliptical counter, at which can be seated nearly 200 persons. The table is covered with a heavy granite face, and the chairs are fitted with backs, and swing on a pivot\u2026<\/p>\n

In the office rooms desks of the mission style in dark oak are being placed in position\u2026The furniture in the general waiting room is the first to attract attention. It is composed principally of heavy double settees, with high backs and heavy arms. These are also of the prevailing dark oak mission style, with the designating little double keystone which is in evidence in the architecture of the depot in all appropriate places.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While preparations continued for the formal opening, such as the Missouri & Northern Arkansas planning special excursion trains to Joplin from as far as Seligman for the opening, other events were afoot.\u00a0 One such event was the visit to the Depot of the president of the Missouri Pacific Railroad.\u00a0 Dutifully impressed, the president implied that his railroad may abandon their old Joplin depot in lieu of the impressive Union Depot Station.<\/p>\n

Finally, at 2:30 pm on July 20, 1911, a parade of Joplin’s finest began under a drizzling rain from the intersection of 20th<\/sup> and Main Street.\u00a0 The procession was led by a vanguard of twenty mounted members of the Joplin Police Department with Joplin Police Chief Joe Myers and his assistant chief, Edward Portley at the front.\u00a0 Planned to follow, though not noted in an article printed afterward, were members of Joplin’s labor unions, secret societies, and civic societies.\u00a0 Among the noted was a procession of the city’s \u201cfire automobiles\u201d and more than thirty other automobiles set to carrying officials from the railroads.\u00a0 Members of the Commercial Club were present, as were four cars with members of the South Joplin Business Men’s Club and another with officers of the Villa Heights Booster Club.<\/p>\n

At the depot, many sought shelter from the rain inside and around the depot, Mayor Jesse Osborne and Frank L. Yale, president of the Commercial Club, made speeches.\u00a0 Despite the wet summer day, Osborne spoke with enthusiasm of the depot’s construction, \u201cThe people of Joplin should congratulate themselves on securing even at this late day, a beautiful structure of this type.\u00a0 It is not only a monument to the progressiveness of the railroads entering this city, but it is a striking example of the uses to which a waste product may be put\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Yale followed Osborne and declared the depot impressive and the fulfillment of a \u201clong felt want.\u201d<\/p>\n

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From July 1, 1911 to November 4, 1969, the Union Depot served the city of Joplin.\u00a0 Over the fifty-eight year span, it was at the depot that Joplin saw her fathers, brothers and sons depart and hopefully return from two world wars.\u00a0 It was in the shade of the depot’s awnings that families bid farewell to friends and fellow family members who were departing for the wider world beyond Joplin’s city limits, and it was where they stood in eager anticipation for their return.\u00a0 For a city that foresaw Joplin as a great metropolis positioned at the intersection of the Great American Plains, the Southern Ozarks, and the Southwest, it was one more proud achievement to count among its others.\u00a0 It was one more step down a road to a brighter future.<\/p>\n

In the March of 1949, the Kansas City Southern showed off its latest liner, the Southern Belle at the depot.\u00a0 Just over twenty years later, it was the Southern Belle which pulled away, the final train to leave the Joplin Union Depot.\u00a0 The following decades of the Twentieth Century were turbulent for the former pride of Joplin.\u00a0 Only three years after its closing, the Depot’s first chance to become relevant again in the daily life of Joplin was lost when the City Council refused to renovate the building as a home to the Joplin Museum Complex in honor of the city’s 100th<\/sup> birthday.\u00a0 Not long after, the depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places, an honor, but not a safeguard against demolition.<\/p>\n

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The depot next was passed from one speculative buyer to another, each espousing plans to put the building to use which inevitably always failed to materialize.\u00a0 In the mid-1980’s, an attempt was made once again to renovate it, but it dissolved into lawsuits and accusations.\u00a0 Finally, in the late 1990’s, the Department of Natural Resources bought the site.\u00a0 It was not until approximately 2009 that for the first time the depot became the subject of serious discussion regarding renovation and restoration.\u00a0 In 2010, City Manager, Mark Rohr, proposed a plan to use the depot as part of a north Main Street development, possibly as a new home to the Joplin Museum Complex (JMC).\u00a0 Despite resistance from the boards overseeing the JMC, steps were taken toward this ultimate goal.\u00a0 However, at the start of 2012, such talk has been replaced by more important and pressing matters that arose in the aftermath of May, 2011.\u00a0 Until the time that they resume, the depot remains enclosed behind a chain link fence, waiting for a chance to once again become the pride of Joplin.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catch up on the previous installments of the history of the Joplin Union Depot here: Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV. Despite the progress made in December of 1910, work came to a sudden stop in the first week of January 1911 due to a snap of extreme cold weather.\u00a0 The approximate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,245,39,395],"tags":[854,2434,2422,2418,1329,924,2419,1789,2426,2423,851,2430,2427,687,2431,2432,2424,328,1302,1339,2421,907,362,31,341,342,2414,2428,261,1042,1348,853,2417,2416,1346,1347,986,2425,2433,2429,2420,2413,2360,1304,2415,670],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}