Out of Our Past: Richmond's Pennsylvania depot welcomed presidents, stars. war heroes and more

The birthday of the most historically significant structure in East Central Indiana happens this week.

On Monday July 7, 1902, Richmond’s Pennsylvania depot opened for business.

Although local news editorials heralded high expectations as concerns its benefits to the community, these expectations would ultimately be greatly exceeded by the distinction this new structure would bring to Wayne County in its utility throughout the decades to come.

The Pennsylvania depot would bear witness to major 20th century events.

The ongoing arrival of presidents and celebrities, and the coming and goings of people of all stripe allowed the edifice to bear witness to events that shaped not only Wayne County but the nation.

The July 8th Evening Item reported that in the depot’s first day of operation it “was a very busy place last evening from 7 to 9:30 o’clock.” Throngs of people came and went, and horse-drawn vehicles lined North E as workmen plied their trade.

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The station quickly became a lively 24-hour menagerie of hustle and bustle. Cooks and waiters and porters and bellboys took charge of meals, of horse-drawn carriages and buggies, of vehicles transporting passengers to and from the station. Waiters banged on pans to let travel-weary passengers know where the restaurant was, and that a meal awaited. Train and railway duties were attended to by engineers, firemen, brakemen, signalmen, flagmen and track gangs every day of the year. Buses and coaches stood in readiness outside station doors whenever a train arrived. Later electric streetcars and motorized taxis lined the streets, replacing horse-drawn vehicles.  

At its peak the Pennsylvania Depot had a 24-hour restaurant, all-night news racks, a shoeshine stand and barbershop… and as many as 160 passenger and freight trains passing through town every 24-hours.

Designed by world-renown architect Daniel Hudson Burnham, responsible for several famous landmarks in Chicago, New York, Washington & San Francisco — the Flatiron Building in New York, the Rookery in Chicago, the Union Station in Washington DC, and the overall design of the World Columbia Exposition World’s fair in 1893 — his name alone gives the structure international significance, as it is his last surviving artistic achievement in Indiana.

Historically and architecturally, Richmond’s Pennsylvania Depot is a towering monument of lasting majesty and the glittering jewel of east central Indiana and west central Ohio.

The son of a man who made boots for George Washington — Charles W. Starr — donated the land for the site of the first depot in 1850. The Pennsylvania Depot, built in 1902, was Richmond’s third north side train station on this site, and it was from this very depot that World War I, World War II and Korean War veterans embarked. Many historic scenes of powerful emotion occurred.

On Thursday, April 5, 1917, at two o’clock in the afternoon, the first contingent of Wayne County conscripted males paraded from the courthouse to the train station to enter the war to end all wars, World War I. Flags waved and there were cheers and prayers along with continuous applause from residents who did not know if they were viewing their beloved for the very last time.

World War II started 21 years later on Sept. 1, 1939 and the depot again became a departure point for local men and women entering war service. For the many who did not return, this was their last glimpse of loved ones. Richmond residents tragically became aware of war’s ravages when their coffins began arriving home.

American presidents, world leaders, war weary soldiers and internationally renowned luminaries as well as common folk and unsung heroes, who are the true fabric of a nation’s greatness, visited upon the depot.

Nearly all American presidents who held the office from the late 1800s up through Dwight D. Eisenhower stopped at the site where the depot now stands. This included Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.

International celebrities tromped through, including frontier showman Buffalo Bill Cody, ‘little Miss sure shot’ Annie Oakley, educator-orator Booker T. Washington, bar smasher Carrie A. Nation, humorist Will Rogers, sight-impaired humanitarian Helen Keller, poets James Whitcomb Riley and Robert Frost, jazz immortals Louis Armstrong, Hoagy Carmichael, Fats Waller, Mamie Smith, Fletcher Henderson and Jelly Roll Morton, evangelist Billy Sunday, airplane inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright, Rear Admiral Richard Byrd, political orator William Jennings Bryan, silent film stars Tom Mix, Ken Maynard and Lillian Gish, famed dancer Bill “Mr. Bojangles” Robinson, vaudeville and film comedians Jack Benny, the Marx Brothers and George Burns and Gracie Allen, baseball greats Babe Ruth and Joe DiMagio, heavyweight boxing champions Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Gene Tunney, singers Sammy Davis Jr. and Peggy Lee, Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt… and members of the real Trapp Family Singers of "Sound of Music" fame.

The Pennsylvania Depot thrived for three quarters of the 20th century, a time in which Americans witnessed the first flight of an airplane by two former Richmond boys at Kitty Hawk, the first viewing of silent films and the first playing of a baseball world series. Henry Ford introduced the Model T; American women got the right to vote; talking movies arrived. Penicillin was discovered; the atom was split. The first computer — Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) — was built. The first human organ transplant was performed. The precursor of the Internet, ARPNET, was created… and a man walked on the moon.

Historically and architecturally, the Pennsylvania Depot is Wayne County’s glittering jewel and an indispensable part of the nation’s history. It remains an unparalleled artistic achievement in East Central Indiana and west central Ohio and is hallowed ground to generations.

This week is its birthday. It is 122 years old.

Contact columnist Steve Martin at stephenmonroemartin@gmail.com.