The Berea Union Depot is a

train station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing suc ...

in Berea,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, United States, which was built in 1876.Owen, Lorrie K., ed. ''Dictionary of Ohio Historic Places''. Vol. 1.

St. Clair Shores St. Clair Shores is a suburban city bordering Lake St. Clair in Macomb County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms a part of the Metro Detroit area, and is located about northeast of downtown Detroit. Its population was 59,715 at the 2010 ...

: Somerset, 1999, 191-192. As the railroad facilities through town grew, there was a demand in the early 1870s by developers and townspeople for a new passenger and freight station. When it was dedicated on May 3, 1876, ''

The Plain Dealer ''The Plain Dealer'' is the major newspaper of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. In fall 2019, it ranked 23rd in U.S. newspaper circulation, a significant drop since March 2013, when its circulation ranked 17th daily and 15th on Sunday. As of Ma ...

'' called it "the finest facility outside the big cities." As a

union station A union station (also known as a union terminal, a joint station in Europe, and a joint-use station in Japan) is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway companies, allowing passengers to ...

, it served the

Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, established in 1833 and sometimes referred to as the Lake Shore, was a major part of the New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, Illinois, primarily along the ...

and the

Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway, also known as the Big Four Railroad and commonly abbreviated CCC&StL, was a railroad company in the Midwestern United States. It operated in affiliation with the New York Central system. ...

, both of which became part of

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

. It ceased to serve as a railway depot in 1954. In 1980, the building was restored as a restaurant and gathering place. Built of

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

with elements of

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

Ohio Historical Society Ohio History Connection, formerly The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society and Ohio Historical Society, is a nonprofit organization incorporated in 1885. Headquartered at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio, Ohio History Connect ...

, 2007. Accessed 2014-02-11. the depot is a

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

structure with Victorian-influenced components. Both the sandstone and the styling are uncommon in northeastern Ohio, where masonry depots were typically brick, and where wooden stations outnumbered masonry. Critical to the station's establishment was Berea's stone-based economy; in the late nineteenth century, the city's sandstone quarries were the world's largest, and a typical day in the 1880s saw eighteen trains at the station. One century later, the depot was named a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...

: it was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in November 1980, qualifying because of its place in local history and because of its historically significant architecture. Berea_Union_Depot_-_Ohio_Historical_Marker

Berea_Union_Depot_-_Ohio_Historical_Marker

References

External links

Berea Union Depot TavernExisting Railroad Stations in Cuyahoga County, Ohio
{{National Register of Historic Places Railway stations in the United States opened in 1876 Railway stations closed in 1954 Berea, Ohio Transportation buildings and structures in Cuyahoga County, Ohio Former railway stations in Ohio Gothic Revival architecture in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Cuyahoga County, Ohio Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Former New York Central Railroad stations Sandstone buildings in the United States