(The following story by Carma Wadley appeared on the Deseret News website on September 21, 2009.)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — In early August 1909, Salt Lake City was gearing up for what would be the largest convention in the city’s history: the 43rd Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Perhaps as many as 70,000 Civil War veterans, their families and other visitors would arrive in the city, and most would come by rail.
Salt Lake’s rail yards received daily notices of special trains and special cars that would be bringing delegates to the convention, and the city was all set to put on a grand spectacle for them.
Passengers arriving on the Oregon Short Line Railroad or the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad would be greeted with a spectacle all their own: a brand-new depot, which had opened just days earlier at “the foot of South Temple street.”
The Deseret News called it a building erected on an “elaborate scale” and noted it was “one of the finest passenger stations in the entire West” and “an ornament and credit to the city.”
The paper gave a further description: “The structure itself is of reinforced concrete. The building is in three parts, the central portion being free from inside columns and containing a general waiting room … The finish of the building is dignified and harmonious.”
The “Grand Hall,” 136 feet long by 100 feet wide, had a round vaulted ceiling. Two large oil-on-canvas murals, one at each end, had been painted by San Francisco artist John McQuarries. One showed Brigham Young declaring “This is the place,” and the other depicted the “Driving of the Golden Spike” at Promontory Point in 1869.
The west wall of the waiting room, which overlooked the tracks, had five stained-glass windows done by another San Francisco artist, Harry Hopp, showing mountains, trestles, agricultural scenes and forms of transportation.
“The lighting of the building is a feature in itself,” noted the Deseret News.
“Each arch is illuminated by 18 incandescents, and a row of closely spaced lights runs all around the room.”
Several side rooms were originally used for separate male and female waiting areas. The building also housed an emergency hospital, lunch room, baggage rooms, offices for the two railroads and a newsstand, which was believed to have been located in the northwest corner.
Perhaps some of those first visitors to the depot stopped to look around in awe. One hundred years later, modern visitors can still do the same.
Although no longer a working train station, the building has been preserved. The Grand Hall serves as the eastern entrance to the Gateway Development, just east of the Olympic Legacy Plaza, and is also used for receptions, parties, banquets, proms and other functions.
One of those functions will be held on Friday — a “Barn Party at the Depot,” sponsored by the Utah Heritage Foundation to acknowledge and celebrate the centennial of the Union Pacific Depot.
The event will feature a gourmet Western dinner, silent and live auctions of Western items and historic Utah memorabilia, dancing and more.
All proceeds will support the historic preservation efforts of the Utah Heritage Foundation.
Everyone is invited — railroad buffs, preservationists and “people who just like to party,” says Kirk Huffaker, the foundation’s executive director.
“People will be checking in at the old ticket counter,” he says, and will have a great opportunity to appreciate this “icon of the city. Not only is it an important building, but it also speaks of the great era of railroading.”
America moved by rail in the early part of the 20th century. “Because Salt Lake was a central point in westward expansion, the railroads were very important here,” says Huffaker.
Just blocks south of the Union Pacific Depot, in fact, is the historic Rio Grande Depot. “One reason why this (Union Pacific) building was so grand was because they wanted to out-do the Rio Grande; they were always in competition.”
When the Union Pacific Depot was first opened, it was known as the Union Depot, he explains, used by both the Oregon Short Line and the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, as letters on the building proclaimed. The latter was half-owned by Union Pacific.
In 1921, Union Pacific bought up the rest of the stock, and the Union Depot became the Union Pacific Depot. “The lettering on the exterior of the building was removed, and the Union Pacific shield was installed and has graced the depot ever since,” says Huffaker.
When the depot was built, it was truly a one-of-a-kind building, he says. The architectural style is French Second Empire. “That was an East-Coast or West-Coast style that was very late to come to Utah. This far preceded cutting-edge at the time. The only other building that was anything like it was the Devereaux House, which was built by one of Salt Lake’s biggest millionaires.”
The mammoth roof of the depot is double-pitched mansard style and features small circular dormers. Originally, the roof was covered with black slate shingles, but they were replaced by copper plates in the 1970s, he explains. The large clock tower once had a 6-foot-2-inch clock face.
Designed by D.J. Patterson, under the direction of consulting engineer John D. Isaacs, the depot was built at a cost of between $450,000 and $550,000.
The glory days of the Union Pacific Depot, like the glory days of passenger rail travel, lasted for about half a century.
But by the 1960s, air travel was becoming increasingly popular, and railroads, particularly passenger railroads, found themselves hurting. Lines were discontinued; routes were sporadic; schedules were unreliable. In 1970, the U.S. government tried to revive rail service with the creation of Amtrak.
At first, passenger service in Utah came only to Ogden. In 1977, Salt Lake service was reinstated with two lines: Amtrak’s Pioneer train ran between Salt Lake City and Portland, Ore., and Seattle; and the Desert Wind connected Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Cars from both trains connected to the eastbound California Zephyr trains through elaborate switching maneuvers at the Union Pacific Depot.
The services were too elaborate to last, however, and Amtrak eventually opted to use the Rio Grande Depot as its only station, says Huffaker. The Union Pacific Depot was closed.
In 1989, Union Pacific donated the depot to the state, and “it was used by the Utah Arts Council for storage.” In November 1999, a three-way deal gave ownership to the Boyer Co., which had already purchased a 40-acre tract from Union Pacific for its Gateway development. The deal transferred ownership from the state to Salt Lake City, which in turn transferred title to Boyer.
In return, the Arts Council moved to a Boyer-owned building at 300 South and 500 West. It was reported that without the depot, Boyer would have walked away from the entire project.
As it was, the building underwent a $14 million renovation, basically to provide seismic updating, with most of original Grand Hall remaining the same.
The north wing of the building is now a nightclub, called “The Depot.” Guests visiting the third floor of the club will find a window that provides a view of the original circular ceiling below and the rafters of the mansard roof high above.
The south wing of the building is used for retail space, currently home of Urban Outfitters.
“This building continues to serve a great purpose,” says Huffaker. “It’s getting harder to find public spaces that can accommodate large gatherings. We have hotel ballrooms, but they don’t have the kind of character and authenticity that this does. It’s an elegant space with significance that is part architecture, part history. It marks a huge space in time when Utah’s relatively young transportation industry was dominated by railroad.”
Without this physical reminder, “how would you explain how grand railroads once were?” he asks. “How would you explain their rise to prominence and what they meant to us?”
There’s no doubt, he says, that “those railroads helped Utah grow as a state, helped make us what we are.”