The Dwight Chicago and Alton depot is a former

railroad depot A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a Rail transport, railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passenger train, passengers, freight rail transport, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one r ...

Dwight, Illinois Dwight is a village located mainly in Livingston County, Illinois, with a small portion in Grundy County. The population was 4,032 at the 2020 census. Dwight contains an original stretch of U.S. Route 66, and from 1892 until 2016 continuously us ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The historic depot, in used by passengers from 1891 until 1971. It was again used from 1986 until 2016, by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

, for service between

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. Passenger service moved from the former depot south to a new station in October 2016.

History

Built by the

Chicago and Alton Railroad The Alton Railroad was the final name of a railroad linking Chicago to Alton, Illinois; St. Louis, Missouri; and Kansas City, Missouri. Its predecessor, the Chicago and Alton Railroad , was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1931 an ...

in 1891, the structure, designed by

Henry Ives Cobb Henry Ives Cobb (August 19, 1859 – March 27, 1931) was an architect from the United States. Based in Chicago in the last decades of the 19th century, he was known for his designs in the Richardsonian Romanesque and Victorian Gothic styles. ...

in the

Richardson Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

style of rusticated masonry, has been on 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 ...

since December 27, 1982. The foundation is of Joliet stone and the walls above are of Bedford blue stone from Indiana composed almost entirely of fossil shells.Great American Stations
Accessed March 21, 2013. Passenger service ceased upon the formation of Amtrak in 1971. Service returned in 1986. The Village Board Finance Committee offered Amtrak to reuse the depot "until a permanent passenger area can be found." In 1999, the village of Dwight offered the use of the depot to the Dwight Historical Society. The society moved its museum into the north end of the building; the south end holds both a meeting room for the society and the present office of the Dwight Chamber of Commerce. From 1999 until 2016, a transitional period, the historic depot served as both museum and working depot. In August 2015, construction began on a new station building dedicated to Amtrak passengers. The new high-speed rail station, built at South Columbia Street a block southwest of the historic depot, opened on October 29, 2016, and the Chicago and Alton depot became a museum and community center.

References

External links

*

at the

Dwight Railroad Depot -- Dwight Area Chamber of Commerce
{{National Register of Historic Places Dwight, Illinois Former Chicago and Alton Railroad stations Former Amtrak stations in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Livingston County, Illinois Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Railway stations in the United States opened in 1891 Romanesque Revival architecture in Illinois Transportation buildings and structures in Livingston County, Illinois 1891 establishments in Illinois Railway stations closed in 2016 Railway stations in the United States closed in the 2010s