Gloomy hulk: Union Station, Texarkana, Arkansas/Texas

Texarkana is an old time commercial and transport town straddling the border of northeast Texas and southwest Arkansas. The town's famous local son was Scott Joplin, who was born in 1868 to a musical family of railway laborers. 

The historic downtown is a bit dilapidated but may be experiencing a bit of revival. While driving through town, my wife and I saw a forlorn brick Beaux Arts railroad station with broken windows and obvious signs of decades of neglect. According to Wikipedia, "Texarkana Union Station was constructed and operated by Union Station Trust, a subsidiary organization created as a joint effort between the Missouri-Pacific, Texas & Pacific, Cotton Belt and Kansas City Southern railroads. E. M. Tucker, chief architect for Missouri Pacific, designed the building with a track layout and overhead concourse reminiscent of the style he had used when rebuilding Little Rock Union Depot after a 1921 fire." A cornerstone showed 1929.

We parked and walked to the former entrance doors. Surely they were not open. A dirty glass door swung open. The building was unlocked?

The entrance led the potential train traveler up a flight of terrazzo stairs to the grand entry hall. No one there? No security? No signs?

The main hall was grand and echoey, intended to impress with solidity, prosperity, and permanence. This was not Pennsylvania Station in New York or Union Station in Los Angeles, but the Texarkana train traveler need not feel any less important.

The ticket boots were behind glass framed with mahogany. Note the glazed buff tile, durable for the ages.

Some of the side rooms off the main hall are a mess. Do homeless people sleep here? What are these bags of junk and rags?

Other side rooms may have been waiting rooms. The carpet was a nasty late addition.

The balconies on the rail yard side of the building were fenced off. Amtrak uses a few dingy rooms on the east end of the building for a waiting area and ticket sales but never occupied this main part of the station because there was no access for handicapped travelers (not a priority when the station was built in 1929-1930).

An abandoned kitchen with drop ceiling was rather grim. The machinery was definitely post-1930s, so someone must have tried to use the old station for a function or entertainment venue.

Dark stairs led to the second floor. There was a nice view of the main hall and some empty side rooms. I assume these were offices at one time.

Ah ha, one of these. But definitely not 1930s original. I did not try it.

Finally, back outside. As you can see, this station once also served as a freight operation, where cargo could be offloaded from or placed on trucks.

Union Station was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, less than a decade after the last rail passenger departed in 1971. The problem is, what next? Who can use the building? Who can afford the cost of repair and renovation?

These digital files are from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera, most with the 14mm ƒ/2.8 lens, tripod-mounted. Some of the interior rooms needed long exposures, an advantage to digital capture because there is no need to accommodate reciprocity failure.

Mississippi Valley and Yazoo Railroad Depot, Vicksburg, Mississippi

First the flood came, then the media came, and they photographed the poor, forlorn Yazoo and Mississippi Valley RR Station with water up to the first floor windows. Possibly this scene will became symbolic of the great flood of 2011. Fortunately, the water is receding and workmen, who were restoring the depot, can dry out the first floor and clean out mud and muck and eject a few snakes.


The depot, completed in 1907, is a handsome brick building on Levee Street, located just north of the concrete floodwall at the base of Grove Street. It was designed by the Chicago architectural firm of Daniel Burnham & Co. (We are not sure if Burnham himself designed the building, but he was well-known for his seminal designs of the Chicago waterfront and parks and the monumental buildings of the World's Columbian Exposition). Because of its location, the Vicksburg depot was vulnerable to exceptionally high water, and the first floor was flooded in the great 1927 flood.

In the early 20th century, rail service ran north-south at least as far as Greenville and possibly to Memphis. I believe passengers along the east-west line (heading east to Jackson or west to Monroe, Dallas, etc) would have boarded trains at another depot just off the Cherry Street bridge. Passenger rail service in Vicksburg ended in 1959. I do not know who owned the Levee Street station over the decades. The ground floor had been used by various companies or activities but was also empty for years at a time. Remodeling removed almost all traces of authentic walls or features , so I did not take photographs in these areas. In the 1990s, a kidney dialysis company leased space here. But when remodeling began recently, a stationmaster's office or control room of some sort became exposed.

The second floor provided more of interest to an urban archaeologist. The stairs to the second floor were reasonably intact and still had their deep varnish. I have seen this time and time again: varnished wood has been painted, and after a few years, the paint looks nasty, but areas where the varnish was left original, it looks perfect.


At the top of the stairs, a long hall runs along the east side of the building. Turn left and it leads to a ladies' lavatory.


The lavatory retained some of its original features, including granite stall walls and handsome varnished stall doors.


Turn right, and the hall led to a office or work room with some of its original trim.

About 15 years ago, there were two apartments on the third floor. The tenants in one unit let me come up and access the flat part of the roof to take some photographs. Back then, it was still a bit odd to live downtown and must have been nice and quiet at night. The photograph above shows what is left of one of the attic apartments.

The window shows the view up Grove Street. I am not sure what will be done with the third floor in the current renovation. Fireproof steel stairs have been installed at both ends of the building to comply with fire codes. It is a lovely building, and I am glad it will be used as the Vicksburg Transportation Museum. Please come and visit.

Finally, this postcard from the Cooper collection at Mississippi Department of Archives and History, shows the view of the railroad depot and the Yazoo Canal from the roof of the First National Bank building.

Here is another postcard showing Washington Street with the depot to the left. Vicksburg was a bustling industrial and commercial city then. How did it decline so badly in the latter half of the 20th century?