Everything about The Livingston Depot totally explained
The
Livingston Depot is a restored 1902
Northern Pacific Railroad (NP)
train station anchoring the downtown
historic district of
Livingston, Montana. It was designed by the Minnesota firm of
Reed and Stem, the first architects for
New York City's
Grand Central Station in an Italianate style with red and yellow brick and ornate
terra cotta detailing from lions' heads to floral figures and the NP's trademark
yin-yang emblem, and its interior includes inlaid
terrazzo and tiling including the same NP emblem. The complex combines a main building, a restaurant building, and a baggage building with a colonnade surrounding a courtyard facing the railroad tracks. It had two predecessors, an 1882 wooden facility, which burned down, and a second brick structure, which came to be inadequate for the increasing and somewhat affluent passenger traffic the NP was bringing to visit
Yellowstone National Park. The current facility was constructed in approximately three years and dedicated in summer of 1902. It would host active rail traffic including the
North Coast Limited runs.
The earliest fortunes of the Depot were tied to the fate of the railroad. Initially it was a busy connection center, sited adjacent to the large Livingston shops complex and served as the NP's Central Division headquarters, being roughly equidistant between the termini of
St. Paul, Minnesota, and
Seattle, Washington. Toward about
World War II, rail travel to the park tapered off heavily in favor of automobile visits, and chiefly charter excursions used the Yellowstone Park line. In 1970 the NP merged with the
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad,
Great Northern Railway, and
Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway, forming the facility's new owner, the
Burlington Northern Railroad; passenger train service was taken over by Amtrak in 1971. In 1979
Amtrak discontinued passenger service entirely along the NP's line in favor of the
Empire Builder track on the high line, the old line of the Great Northern, and the Depot began to suffer some neglect. By the mid 1980s the BN began unsuccessfully to seek a buyer for it. Local citizens lobbied for its donation to the city and adoption by the non-profit Livingston Depot Foundation they created for its extensive restoration and subsequent operation.
In summer of 1987 it opened as the Livingston Depot Center, operating as a museum and community center in the heart of the city, as it continues to operate today. The museum opens typically from late May to mid-September, and the facility during the off-season hosts wedding receptions, holiday parties, blues and other concerts, cards nights, historic talks, economic development forums, and similar events, and a
model railroad club meets in its basement. During the
July 4th weekend it hosts a festival of arts in the adjacent Depot Rotary Park running parallel to the train tracks. The facility also underwent a roof restoration and restabilization project from approximately 2004 to 2007.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Livingston Depot'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://livingston_depot.totallyexplained.com">Livingston Depot Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
