Kirkwood station, also called the Kirkwood Missouri Pacific Depot, is a suburban

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 ...

train station in

Kirkwood, Missouri Kirkwood is an inner-ring western suburb of St. Louis located in St. Louis County, Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 27,540. Founded in 1853, the city is named after James P. Kirkwood, builder of the Pacific Railroad th ...

, United States. Located in downtown Kirkwood, it is one of three Amtrak stations in the St. Louis metropolitan area; the other two are the

Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center The Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center, also known as Gateway Station, is a rail and bus terminal station in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. Opened in 2008 and operating 24 hours a day, it serves Amtrak trains and Greyhound and Burlington T ...

in downtown St. Louis, and the Alton station. The station is run entirely by volunteers. It is the third-busiest Amtrak station in Missouri.

History

In 1851, land where the current station is located (Argonne Avenue and Kirkwood Road) was obtained from Owen Collins by the

Pacific Railroad The Pacific Railroad (not to be confused with Union Pacific Railroad) was a railroad based in Missouri. It was a predecessor of both the Missouri Pacific Railroad and St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. The Pacific was chartered by Missouri in 184 ...

for a right of way. The track for the Pacific Railroad to Kirkwood was completed in 1853. The first train arrived May 11, 1853, for an auction sale of lots, making Kirkwood the first planned suburb west of the

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. The town was named for the chief engineer for the railroad,

James P. Kirkwood James Pugh Kirkwood (27 March 1807 – 22 April 1877) was a 19th-century American civil engineer, and general superintendent of the Erie Railroad in the year 1849–1850.Edward Harold Mott Between the Ocean and the Lakes: The Story of Erie'' Colli ...

. In 1863, a frame depot was built. Here members of the first school board met to draft the charter of the Kirkwood School District, which was granted in 1865. In 1893, Douglas Donovan was hired by the

Missouri Pacific Railroad The Missouri Pacific Railroad , commonly abbreviated as MoPac, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers. In 1967, the railroad ...

to construct the current stone station to replace the wooden station. The current station remains today as an outstanding example of

Richardsonian 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 ...

architecture. Commuter trains ran to and from Kirkwood until 1961. A train turn-table was located near the present Farmers Market for the engines to be turned for the return trip to St. Louis and for the helper engines, which were used to help freight trains manage the "Kirkwood Hill," prior to the arrival of

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s. Though originally deemed ineligible for such status, the station was listed 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 ...

on July 5, 1985. On November 9, 2022, Amtrak announced that it planned to work on improving the station.

References

External links

Kirkwood, MO – USA Rail Guide (TrainWeb)
{{authority control Amtrak stations in Missouri Railway stations in the United States opened in 1893

Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Missouri National Register of Historic Places in St. Louis County, Missouri

History

See also

References

External links