Orient-Santa Fe Depot
San Angelo, Tom Green County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway Company (KCM&O) built this depot in 1909-10. The KCM&O was one of three connecting railroads promoted by mining and railroad entrepreneur Arthur E. Stilwell. The proposed rail system ran 1,600 miles from Kansas City, Missouri, to Topolabampo, Mexico, the Pacific Port nearest the U.S. Midwest. However, the route was never fully completed. San Angelo won a bitter contest over Sweetwater to become a major station on Stilwell’s international rail system. This was the largest of the company’s depots, and it also served as headquarters for their state offices. TheKCM&O engineering department designed the depot; most drawings bear the name or initials of albert t. Camfield. The depot is a large, two-story rectangular plan structure with a bell-hipped tile roof, deep overhangs, and dormers on the street façade. Red brick walls are accented by cast stone detailing. Square posts support a one-story hipped-roof canopy and covered entrance on three sides. A square projecting tower with pyramidal roof on the track side housed the dispatcher. The first floor contained the segregated waiting rooms, ticket office, baggage handling area, gentlemen’s smoking room, and ladies’ parlor. The second floor was devoted to offices. Although the KCM&CO struggled in early years, the discovery of oil in west Texas in the early 1920s led to higher company profits and capital improvements. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company purchased the KCM&O in 1928. By 1989, the Santa Fe announced plans to raze the freight and passenger depots. Citizens initiated a successful campaign to preserve and rehabilitate the buildings as a senior services center and railroad museum.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1909–10, this was the grandest depot of the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway, entrepreneur Arthur Stilwell's audacious scheme to run 1,600 miles from Kansas City to a Mexican Pacific port—a line never fully completed. San Angelo beat out Sweetwater to become a major station and the railroad's state headquarters, and after the 1920s West Texas oil boom the Santa Fe absorbed the KCM&O in 1928. Citizens saved the two-story, tile-roofed building from demolition in 1989, rehabilitating it as a senior center and railroad museum.
Why it matters
It embodies both the grand, often overreaching ambitions of early railroad promoters and a community's later fight to preserve its industrial heritage.
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Related people
- · Arthur E. Stilwell
Themes & tags
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