Union Pacific Station
15th Street and Capitol Avenue
Van Brunt and Howe
1887

 

In 1885, the Cheyenne Daily Sun editorialized on the need for a new Union Pacific depot. Apparently passengers avoided the existing wooden one as if it were a "cowshed." Work on a new depot began the following year. A time capsule placed inside the 2,500-pound corner-stone included a book of poems entitled Black Mammy. Van Brunt and Howe (who relocated from Boston to Kansas City, Mo., in 1886) formulated a Richardsonian Romanesque design, extending over more than a city block. Red and gray sandstone, quarried at Fort Collins, Colo., covered the two-and-a-half-story iron and wooden frame. A miniturreted clock tower more than 120 feet high, emerged from the slate-covered roof. Red oak was used extensively on the interior, including the ladies' waiting room, which the Sun described as having an "old-fashioned fireplace ... making the spacious and elegant room appear cheerful and homelike." Waiting rooms for "gents" and "emigrants" (who ate at a separate lunch counter) were said to be equally well appointed. The second floor of the east wing housed division offices. On the north and east ends stood a park (replaced in 1940 by a bus depot) with flowers, trees, and a water fountain that accommodated both horses and dogs. In 1922, a story-and-a-half "eating house" of matching sandstone was added to the depot's east end (converted in 1948 to an office and meeting facility known as Hicks Hall). Seven years later, the interior received an Art Deco updating. Other alterations included elimination of the carriage passageway that extended through the building and the addition of a concourse.