The Perris Depot is a

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 ...

built in 1892 to serve

Perris, California Perris is an old railway city in Riverside County, California, United States, located east-southeast of Los Angeles and north of San Diego. It is known for Lake Perris, an artificial lake, skydiving, and its sunny dry climate. Perris is wit ...

. The station replaced a previous wooden structure at the same site on the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

line, originally the

California Southern Railroad The California Southern Railroad was a subsidiary railroad of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe) in Southern California. It was organized July 10, 1880, and chartered on October 23, 1880, to build a rail connection between wha ...

History

The station was built by J.W. Nance, a Perris developer, and was designed by Benjamin Franklin Levet, Sr., son-in-law to

Fred T. Perris Fred Thomas Perris (January 2, 1837 – May 12, 1916) was Chief Engineer of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, who oversaw the construction of the last leg of the 2nd Transcontinental Railroad from Barstow, California through Cajon Pass ...

. The depot served both passenger traffic and the considerable agricultural traffic associated with the farmlands of the Perris Valley. However, passenger traffic declined and ended in 1947. Agriculture declined due to limited water supplies and salinization, and farms were replaced with suburbs. All but one track in the station yard was abandoned in 1975. From 1974 the depot has been used by the Perris Valley Historical and Museum Association as a museum of local history. In the 1990s the depot was proposed as a commuter rail station.

Description

The red brick depot is in the Queen Anne style, with a conical-roofed

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

, round windows and an arched entry. The depot is a one-story structure, generally rectangular in plan, with a raised central mass at right angles to the plan with flanking wings. The central mass features an arched entry on one side and a projecting round bay with a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

opposite. The brick

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s are partly hipped, with prominent "PERRIS" signs on each. A comb-like

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

decorates the ridge of the central roof mass and wings, with "SANTA FE" signs facing either platform.

Present use

The Perris Depot is used by the

Orange Empire Railway Museum The Southern California Railway Museum (SCRM, reporting mark OERX), formerly known as the Orange Empire Railway Museum, is a railroad museum in Perris, California, United States. It was founded in 1956 at Griffith Park in Los Angeles before moving ...

as a terminus for its excursion train line. The depot was renovated in 2007–2008. The building is now home to the Perris Valley Historical Museum. The Perris Multimodal Transit Center was opened in 2010 adjacent to the depot, with bus and Metrolink train service. The Metrolink line extension through Perris was completed in June 2016 and stops at the adjacent Downtown Perris station. The museum continues to operate in the depot. The depot was placed 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 ...

in 1994.

References

External links

Perris Valley Historical Museum

Perris Depot
at the Orange Empire Railway Museum {{National Register of Historic Places in California Railway stations in Riverside County, California Railway stations in the United States opened in 1892 National Register of Historic Places in Riverside County, California Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in California 1890s architecture in the United States Queen Anne architecture in California Railway stations closed in 1947 Museums in Riverside County, California 1892 establishments in California 1947 disestablishments in California Former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway stations in California