Battle Creek station, listed in 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 ...

as the Penn Central Railway Station, is a disused train station in Battle Creek, Michigan. It opened on July 27, 1888. Rogers and MacFarlane of Detroit designed the depot, one of several Richardsonian Romanesque-style stations between

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

and

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

in the late nineteenth century. Masonry of

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

red sandstone, noted for its distinctive patterns, provides one of the most striking aspects of the Depot's exterior. Another prominent feature of the Depot is its clock tower.

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

as well as Presidents

William Howard Taft William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857March 8, 1930) was the 27th president of the United States (1909–1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921–1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected pr ...

and Gerald Ford visited here. The depot was acquired by the

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 Mid ...

in 1918,

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

in 1968 and

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

in 1970. The depot was listed on the

in 1971. The station served New York Central trains on the Chicago - Detroit route, such as the ''

Chicago Mercury ''Mercury'' was the name used by the New York Central Railroad for a family of daytime streamliner passenger trains operating between midwestern cities. The ''Mercury'' train sets were designed by the noted industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss, an ...

'' and the ''

Twilight Limited The ''Twilight Limited'' was a named passenger train in the United States which initially operated between Chicago, Illinois, and Detroit, Michigan. The New York Central Railroad introduced the train in 1926, and it continued until the formati ...

'' and trains on the Chicago - Detroit - New York (via southwestern Ontario) itinerary, such as the ''

Wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscul ...

.'' In 1982, Amtrak moved operations to a newer facility located five blocks to the south on the

Grand Trunk Western Railroad The Grand Trunk Western Railroad Company is an American subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway operating in Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Since a corporate restructuring in 1971, the railroad has been under CN's subsidiary holding ...

line, as part of a line consolidation that saw Conrail's ex-New York Central line through downtown closed and removed. The current

Amtrak station This is a list of train stations and Thruway Motorcoach stops used by Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation in the United States). This list is in alphabetical order by station or stop name, which mostly corresponds to the city ...

services the Detroit to Chicago, and the

Port Huron, MI Port Huron is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of St. Clair County. The population was 30,184 at the 2010 census. The city is adjacent to Port Huron Township but is administered separately. Located along the St. Clair ...

to Chicago routes. The Michigan Central Depot sat empty for seven years. In 1989 restaurateurs

Peter Jubeck Peter G. "Pete" Jubeck (February 9, 1936–May 12, 2003) was a Czech-American businessman who founded, with partner Robert Swartz, the restaurants Sir Pizza of Michigan and Clara's Lansing Station, both in Lansing, Michigan, and with partner ...

and Ross Simpson purchased the depot and transformed it into a restaurant named ''Clara's on the River'' which opened June 8, 1992.Official page of Clara's on the River
/ref> ''Clara's on the River'' was a sister restaurant to the now closed ''Clara's Lansing Station'', located in the

Union Depot (Lansing, Michigan) The Union Depot is a former train station, located at 637 E. Michigan Avenue in Lansing, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. Despite the union name, Grand Trunk Western trains stopped at a different stati ...

Photo gallery

Image:ClarasontheRiver2.JPG, Clara's on the River, Battle Creek, MI. Image:ClarasontheRiver3.JPG, Patio view. Image:ClarasontheRiver4.JPG, Clock Tower Image:MichiganCentralDepotBattleCreek.jpg, Michigan Central Depot, Battle Creek, MI. Image:Michigan Central Depot Post Card Battle Creek MI.jpg, Post Card, Michigan Central Depot, Battle Creek, MI.

References

External links

*
Official Michigan Historical Marker Site

Official page of Clara's on the River

Official Facebook Page of Clara's on the River
{{NRHP Railway stations in the United States opened in 1888 Railway stations closed in 1982 Battle Creek, Michigan Michigan State Historic Sites Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Michigan Former Michigan Central Railroad stations

Battle Creek Battle Creek is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan, in northwest Calhoun County, at the confluence of the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek rivers. It is the principal city of the Battle Creek, Michigan Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which en ...

Richardsonian Romanesque architecture in Michigan Transportation buildings and structures in Calhoun County, Michigan National Register of Historic Places in Calhoun County, Michigan