The Salt Lake City Union Pacific Depot is a building on the western edge of

downtown Salt Lake City Downtown (also called City Center) is the oldest district in Salt Lake City, Utah. The grid from which the entire city is laid out originates at Temple Square, the location of the Salt Lake Temple. Location Downtown Salt Lake City is usually def ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

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 ...

. Built in 1908–09, it dates back to the more prosperous era in the history of American railroad travel. As Salt Lake Union Pacific Railroad Station, it is 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 ...

Railway history

Originally called the Union Station, it was jointly constructed by the

San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah and Los Angeles, California), via Las Ve ...

and the Oregon Short Line, both later wholly owned by the Union Pacific, at an estimated cost of $450,000 ($ in today's dollars). The platforms behind the station ran north-to-south, parallel to the first main line built in the Salt Lake Valley, which predated the station building. South of 1300 South this is the route used by the UTA TRAX Blue Line and Salt Lake City Southern, while north of North Temple (100 North) it is used by the '' FrontRunner'' line and Union Pacific. Trains from the west used a line south of 900 South in

Glendale Glendale is the anglicised version of the Gaelic Gleann Dail, which means ''valley of fertile, low-lying arable land''. It may refer to: Places Australia * Glendale, New South Wales ** Stockland Glendale, a shopping centre *Glendale, Queensland, ...

to approach the north-to-south platforms. The Salt Lake and Ogden ( Bamberger)

Interurban The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...

line also stopped nearby. When

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 ...

was formed in 1971, it took over the remaining passenger services at the station, but after

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

joined Amtrak all trains were moved to its station three blocks south.

Amtrak

From 1977 to 1986 the depot served as Salt Lake City's

station, but was then replaced by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Depot. It was served by the ''

California Zephyr The ''California Zephyr'' is a passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area (at Emeryville), via Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Reno. At , it is Amtrak's longest daily route, and second-longest overal ...

'', '' Desert Wind'', and ''

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a settler who migrates to previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited land. In the United States pioneer commonly refers to an American pioneer, a person in American history who migrated west to join in settling and dev ...

'' trains, with the latter two having been discontinued in 1997. The ''California Zephyr'' runs once daily between

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

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and

Emeryville Emeryville may refer to: * Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

(in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

). The former ''Desert Wind'' ran daily from Chicago to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

) and the former ''Pioneer'' ran daily Chicago to ''

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

''. In 1999 Amtrak moved to the

Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub The Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub (also known as Salt Lake Central on Utah Transit Authority TAroutes and SLC by Amtrak) is a multi-modal transportation hub in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States served by the Blue Line of UTA's TRAX light ...

Architecture

According to ''The Railway Gazette'' (1907) the structure's plans came from the office of J.H. Wallace, Assistant Chief Engineer of the Southern Pacific, under the direction of D.J. Patterson, Architect for that company. It served the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake and the Oregon Short Line when it was completed in 1909 and became wholly owned by Union Pacific in the 1920s. Initially, both railroads' initials were prominently displayed on the front of the building, but the "Union Pacific" shield or related logo has graced the depot for most of its history. Union-pacific-passenger-terminal-salt-lake-city-utah-usa

Union-pacific-passenger-terminal-salt-lake-city-utah-usa

The sandstone building is in French Second Empire style, and includes a terrazzo floor and stained glass windows. One ceiling

mural A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...

“Driving The Golden Spike” by

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

artist John MacQuarrie in 1909, depicts the driving of the Golden Spike north of Salt Lake City at "Promontory Summit" signifying the completion of the

first transcontinental railroad North America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the " Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 that connected the existing eastern U.S. rail netwo ...

in 1869. Another mural, “Emigrants Entering Salt Lake Valley,” by San Francisco artists John MacQuarrie & August C. Wocker in 1909, shows the 1847 arrival of

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

pioneers to what is now Salt Lake City. Several side rooms were originally used for separate male and female waiting areas. The depot once housed an emergency hospital, lunch room, baggage rooms, and offices for both of the original railroads. Most of these features are gone now, but the building was extensively renovated in the 1970s to repair damage. Additionally, the original

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. ...

roof was replaced by

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

plates due to leaking problems.

Current

The main lobby, no longer used by

(which has relocated the

), serves as an entrance to The Gateway development. Most of the building is not used for its original purpose, but Union Pacific uses some of the space for offices and training areas. In January 2006, three floors opened as a restaurant and music venue, fittingly called

The Depot The Salt Lake City Union Pacific Depot is a building on the western edge of downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Built in 1908–09, it dates back to the more prosperous era in the history of American railroad travel. As Salt Lake Uni ...

. The Depot brings a wide variety of musical talent to

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

References

External links

The Depot: now a hip Salt Lake City concert venue

* {{Registered Historic Places Former railway stations in Salt Lake City Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah Union stations in the United States Union Pacific Railroad stations in Utah Buildings and structures in Salt Lake City Former Amtrak stations in Utah Railway stations in the United States opened in 1909 Historic American Buildings Survey in Utah 1909 establishments in Utah Railway stations closed in 1986 National Register of Historic Places in Salt Lake City Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Oregon Short Line Railroad