United States historic place
Bardwell station
was a historic
train station
at the city of
Bardwell
in the far western part of the
U.S. state
of
Kentucky
. Constructed in the late nineteenth century along the railroad's main line, it was the center of life for local residents and served as a significant maintenance site for the railroad. As a simple functional structure, the depot qualified for designation as a
historic site
in 1976, but it no longer stands.
Structural history
[
edit
]
When the
Illinois Central Railroad
reached Bardwell in the 1870s, its first "station" was a
camp car
temporarily placed along the tracks. A standing structure was soon built in the middle of the decade.
[2]
: 2
During its existence, the first permanent building was the center of the community; when the
General Assembly
incorporated Bardwell as a city in the late 1870s, its boundaries were defined as being a circle with a radius of 0.5 miles (0.80 km) centered on the depot.
[2]
: 3
This first permanent station remained until 1890, when a team of carpenters employed by the railroad erected a replacement building. Like its predecessor, the second permanent station sat at the heart of the city; Bardwell is
platted
with its streets parallel to the railroad line, and the depot's location places it in the heart of the small commercial district.
[2]
: 2
By this time, the station was a key location for the railroad as well as for the community; as early as 1885, Bardwell was deemed one of the region's premier Illinois Central stations, and it had become the center of a very extensive grain and livestock trade. Services such as a
water stop
were placed at Bardwell, for it lay on the main line between Chicago and New Orleans;
[2]
: 3
the railroad's
grand Ohio River bridge
at
Cairo
is just a short distance to the north.
[2]
: 6
Locals have long remembered that
Purchase
native
Alben W. Barkley
typically began his railroad journeys back to Washington, D.C. while he was the
Vice President of the United States
.
[2]
: 3
Relations between railroad and residents extended past that of shipper and shipping company: the Illinois Central operated a seed-sales division to serve farmers along its lines, and Bardwell's station hosted multiple trains that the railroad used to show off the latest agricultural products. The station continued to serve both as seed showroom and transportation hub well into the twentieth century,
[2]
: 3
but by the 1970s the railroad had ceased using the depot.
[2]
: 6
Architecture
[
edit
]
The second Illinois Central depot at Bardwell was typical of small-town railroad stations constructed in the late nineteenth century. Constructed without unnecessary decorations and built in a simple rectangular plan, it featured large doors and windows,
[2]
: 2
a
hip roof
with wide
eaves
and simple
brackets
, and a loading dock with ramps for the freight doors. Exceptions to the simple rectangle were few: they included a
signal tower
, which was placed after the original construction,
[2]
: 5
and an original
bay window
that was placed in order to facilitate a better view of trains for railroad employees inside the depot. Its walls were
clapboard
placed in an unusual manner: horizontal boards were placed midway between the ground and the roof on all sides of the building, but the remainder was covered with vertical boards.
[2]
: 2
Part of the building's interior space was devoted to storage areas for railroad maintenance vehicles.
[2]
: 5
Preservation
[
edit
]
After the railroad ceased using the depot, local residents proposed its conversion into a library and museum in the 1970s,
[2]
: 6
partly because all other historic Illinois Central stations between Cairo and
Fulton, Kentucky
had been demolished by 1976.
[2]
: 3
In that year, the depot received recognition far beyond western Kentucky: on June 16, the
National Park Service
announced that the depot had been listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
as the
Illinois Central Railroad Station and Freight Depot
, qualifying both because of its place in local history and as a significant example of
vernacular architecture
.
[1]
Despite its historic significance, the depot no longer stands; its site is now an empty lot along the rail line.
[3]
The depot remains listed on the National Register despite its destruction; it is one of five
Carlisle County
locations on the Register, along with the
Neville-Patterson-Lamkin House
near
Arlington
, the
George W. Stone House
near
Milburn
, and the
Marshall
and
Turk
Sites, a pair of
archaeological sites
from the
Mississippian culture
located near Bardwell.
[1]
References
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