(rshsdepot) Fresno, CA ATSF Depot

["Karen L. Lindsey" <kwillowby_@_kermantel.net>]

An article in the Fresno Bee on July 7th announced that the city of
Fresno has purchased the ATSF depot from BNSF.  For years, the old depot
has been used as office space by BNSF, with the Fresno Amtrak station
being located in the freight depot next door.  Renovations and
restoration work should be completed by August, 2004.  They will include
restoring the passenger depot to its proper place as an Amtrak station,
as well as a museum and restaurant on the upper floor.  They are also
searching for the original station tower clock which is "rumored to be
somewhere in town," and are negotiating for its return.  The depot was
built in 1899 in what is called the California Mission Style.  A
beautiful building, and well worth saving.  
For those who don't live here, this is really a big deal for Fresno.
Most of the communities in the Central Valley (and especially Fresno)
have seemed to go out of their way in the past to destroy any old,
historic structure they could find, usually replacing it with a parking
lot or some butt-ugly modern building with all of the personality of a
plastic cup.  Thank God they're finally wising up, especially since
they're starting with the station.

Blake H. Lindsey 

Kerman, CA, Just down the block from  Kerman Yard, West Valley Branch,
San Joaquin Valley RR


___________________________________________

Cool your heels on the rail of an observation car. Let the engineer open
her up for ninety miles an hour. Take in the prairie right and left,
rolling land and new hay crops, swaths of new hay laid in the sun.  A
signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his place at a
window with the serenity of a bronze statue on a dark night when lovers
pass whispering.  

(Carl Sandburg, "Still Life")



=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

------------------------------