Great Northern Depot

About this property

Princeton station in Princeton, Minnesota, United States, is a former passenger and freight depot on the Great Northern Railway. The building is a combination of Queen Anne and Jacobean architectural styles, built of local brick with sandstone trim. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 as the Great Northern Depot. The Great Northern Railway originally did not travel through Princeton, it ran from Minneapolis through Elk River and on to St. Cloud. Another line ran from St. Cloud through Milaca to Duluth. Great Northern mogul James J. Hill challenged local business owners to raise $50,000 to route the line through Princeton. The money was raised, and the Elk River-Milaca line was slated to be built. Surveying for the route began in late March 1886, and the track-laying crew started building the new line from Elk River on October 24, 1886. With few obstacles to construction, the line was finished quickly, and rail service began on November 29, 1886. The new Princeton route actually shortened the distance between Minneapolis and Duluth. Initially service was frequent, but in November 1899 the route to Duluth was relocated to a line passing further east, connecting through Coon Rapids, Cambridge and Brook Park (known as the Coon Creek Cutoff or the Bee Line). As a result, service on the Elk River-Milaca line went into a long, drawn-out decline, with luxury passenger cars being replaced with ordinary coaches in 1908, the U.S. Mail route being lost in 1930, and passenger service terminated altogether in 1952. Freight service continued until 1976, at which time the Elk River-Milaca line was abandoned. The Princeton depot was built in 1902 at a cost of $15,594, replacing a wooden-frame structure. The dedication ceremony was well-attended, with a crowd of at least 500 people. The size of the depot, at a length of 215 feet, a height of 35 feet, and a width exceeding 37 feet, made it the largest building in Princeton. The main products shipped from the depot were agricultural and forest commodities, along with a substantial amount of brick from a brickyard two miles north of Princeton. The Preservation Alliance of Minnesota listed this depot on its 2010 list of the 10 Most Endangered Historic Places in Minnesota. The building has since received a grant from the Minnesota Historical Society and is being restored. == Mille Lacs County Historical Society Depot Museum == Today, the depot is the home of the Mille Lacs County Historical Society Depot Museum, with railroad cars and track placed next to the building. Railroad cars on-site include a 1963 Milwaukee Road insulated boxcar, a 1925 Wooden Milwaukee Road boxcar, a 1963 Burlington Northern wide-vision steel caboose, and a 1963 Great Northern flat car used for concerts in the summer. Also on site is the 1856 "District 1" one-room schoolhouse, which was the first school in Mille Lacs County.

Location

Categories

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.

More in Mille Lacs County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Mille Lacs County.

More historic places in Minnesota

Browse all historic places in Minnesota.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Minnesota history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.