I always try to remember to at least grab my point-and-shoot camera when I go somewhere a little beyond my own neighborhood because I never know what interesting things I might see.
This past weekend, I spotted this cute little vintage train depot on my way to a family function in Lapeer, Michigan.
So, of course, I had to stop and take a few images to share here!
Settlers came to Lapeer as early as 1828, arriving via the south branch of the Flint River from New York State. Lapeer became a village in 1858 and incorporated as a city in 1869.
The town grew with the lumbering industry and attracted two railroads to the area by the early 1870s.
The Grand Trunk Western Railroad arrived in 1871, running from Port Huron to Flint, while the Michigan Central Railroad, running from Detroit to Bay City, arrived in Lapeer in 1872.
Both railroads had depots in town. The Lapeer Depot sat along the Grand Trunk route, while the Lapeer depot for the now-defunct Michigan Central line now houses an insurance agency (and a story for another visit, I'd guess).
The Lapeer Depot is along an active rail line that carries 20-30 trains through Lapeer each day. Most of them are freight trains, but there are also two Amtrak passenger trains that arrive and depart from Lapeer each day.
The wood-frame clapboard-sided building, built in 1900 for the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, used a set of the railroad's standard depot plans that featured a central tower facing the platform with a wing to each side of the tower. The station's wide eaves and hipped roof provided a bit of shelter for people awaiting arriving trains and passengers on the platform.
In 1990, the city of Lapeer received grants totaling $110,000 from the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the Bureau of Urban and Public Transportation (UPTRAN), along with $20,000 from Amtrak, to renovate the depot. The money funded things like repairs to the roof and windows, the addition of benches in the depot's waiting room, a new wood floor for the building and changes to make the train station more accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Lapeer chipped in $35,000 in 1991 to improve the landscaping and parking area at the depot.
Lapeer received a grant in 2001from MDOT's Enhancement Program to restore many of the building's historic features, do some more structural renovations and repairs and to further improve accessibility at the depot.
The $222,000 cost of those repairs and renovations, covered by the $144,000 MDOT grant and $78,000 from the city of Lapeer, included additional changes like restoring the building's original color scheme, signage and installing period-style lighting and benches to help restore much of the original early 1900s look of the depot.
Today the depot is one of 21 active depots in Michigan serving Amtrak's east/west rail passenger line between Toronto and Chicago. It is the only stop between Port Huron and Flint, and the station's ridership in the past year totaled nearly 10,000.
The depot opens for arrivals and departures, so the building wasn't open when I stopped by mid-day to take these photos (while my mom waited nervously in the car as I wandered around the depot, tracks and peered in windows).
The depot's interior has a couple of rooms that include a fairly empty space that had a bunch of what looked to be exercise mats piled up at one end. Sure enough, I found out that the city's community center rents out the space for dance classes and private events, and oversees the building's use for other community events.
The space is fairly spartan as a train depot. It has restrooms, but no ticket office, lounge or WiFi.
Still, compared to the Amtrak station in my home town, which is in the downtown bus station, or the one in neighboring Birmingham, where I waited on an open platform with a small bench and canopy for a train to Chicago, it's pretty luxurious!
Plus, the building exudes so much old-time charm that I spotted a listing for it as a possible film location on the Pure Michigan Film Office site.
Want to learn more about the area and Michigan's vintage train depots? Check out The Lapeer Area (Images of America) by Catherine Ulrich Brakefield or Michigan's Historic Railroad Stations by Michael H. Hodges.
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
Thank you for your wonderful post about our historic downtown depot... We love it!
You can rent the building! and our Community Center activities schedule uses it for dance classes in the evenings! Our Amtrak service is causing us to expand the parking lot soon for more visitor overnight parking...mainly for Chicago bound travelers.
Posted by: Janine Saputo, Lapeer DDA Executive Director | April 25, 2013 at 01:48 PM
Thanks for stopping by Janine!
I love historic buildings like your depot. There are a couple of other buildings in Lapeer I'd like to explore as well (our time on this recent trip was pretty limited as we were up there for a double funeral memorial service).
The old theater downtown looked interesting, and I'd like to check out the other old depot building (now an insurance office) that I read about. We did manage to check out the old courthouse this time out, though, and I wrote a story about that as well! http://www.midwestguest.com/2013/03/historic-courthouse-in-lapeer-michigan.html
Posted by: Dominique King | May 13, 2013 at 05:07 AM