El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Passenger Depot-Douglas

About this property

The El Paso and Southwestern Railroad Depot is a Beaux Arts building constructed in 1913 in Douglas, Arizona. Two-stories tall, it was a major station on the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad line. It is slightly to the northwest of the Douglas Historic District, sitting on a 3.2331 acre parcel. Its grounds include fountains and a period taxi stand. With the expansion of the mining industry in Arizona in the 1880s, there became a need to transport the ore to markets more efficiently. After the town of Douglas, Arizona was formed in 1900 by the Phelps-Dodge Corporation, the company also established the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad (E.P.S.W.) to handle the shipment of their ore. The new rail line was expanded throughout southwest Arizona, and in 1913 the new depot at Douglas was opened. During the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s, the depot was the focal point for passenger traffic along the United States-Mexico border. The passenger service served the public of all social/economic classes. The railroad had a large impact on Douglas' development. In addition to mineral ore, which accounted for the vast majority of the freight of the line, the rail also carried cattle from many of the ranches in the area. It also established a connection between Douglas and El Paso, Texas. In 1924 Phelps Dodge sold the railway to the Southern Pacific Railroad, which subsequently abandoned large portions of the E.P.S.W. The onset of the Great Depression, as well as the establishment of an interstate highway between Douglas and El Paso, reduced the importance of the rail connection. In World War II, the depot served as a major stopping point for troop trains making cross-country trips. However, after the war, passenger traffic fell off, and the depot was little used. Southern Pacific sold the depot to the city of Douglas on October 24, 1985. It was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on April 16, 1986. The central, two-story portion of the depot measures 59' x 112', while the porticos at each end of the building measure 52' x 57'. Thus the total dimensions of the first story are 52' x 225'. The building rests on a solid concrete foundation, and the interior floors are polished concrete. The walls of the structure consist of brick and terra cotta. The roof trusses of the main structure are made of steel, While the portico roofs are concrete covered with poured asphalt. The roof on the main structure is a truncated hip-type covered with clay tiles, which surrounds a flat tin plate section in the center of the building. This structure is architecturally unusual and significant because of its Beaux Arts style, designed with a large rectilinear mass in the center and smaller open porticos attached to each end of the building. An attic story completes the main portico, while parquet roofs top the porticos. The whole is symmetrical in appearance, and the depot's design is of colossal order because the two stories

Location

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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