The Waunakee Railroad Depot is a small wooden depot of the

Chicago and North Western Railway The Chicago and North Western was a Class I railroad in the Midwestern United States. It was also known as the "North Western". The railroad operated more than of track at the turn of the 20th century, and over of track in seven states befor ...

built in 1896 in

Waunakee, Wisconsin Waunakee () is a village in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 14,879 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Madison Metropolitan Statistical Area. Waunakee bills itself as "The Only Waunakee in the World". History When th ...

. In 1978 it 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 ...

. The railroad is what made Waunakee. Before its arrival, the only thing on the village's site was the blacksmith shop of S.P. Martin. In the late 1860s the Chicago and North Western Railway decided to build a line connecting Madison to

St. Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

. As the C&NW planned its route, George Fish and Louis Bacon, who owned land around what would become Waunakee, offered a strip of land for the right of way and $1500 in bonds. The railroad accepted their offer and Fish and Bacon profited when the little depot became a shipping point for the surrounding farmlands. A village grew around it, with stores, schools and churches. With In 1896 (or 1892?) the original depot burned and the C&NW built the current depot in 1896. It is a one-story wooden building clad in drop-siding, with wide overhanging eaves supported by brackets, with carved

bargeboards Bargeboard (probably from Medieval Latin ''bargus'', or ''barcus'', a scaffold, and not from the now obsolete synonym "vergeboard") or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to ...

in some of the gable peaks. At the peak of rail shipping, sixty trains ran through Waunakee per day, with 14 of them carrying passengers. Passenger service ran until 1963 - freight until 1971. In the 1970s the depot was restored by the Waunakee Arts Council and others, and it was bought from the C&NW with a gift form Bob Reeve, a son of an early depot agent Hubert. Today the depot houses Waunakee's Chamber of Commerce.

References

Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Dane County, Wisconsin Former Chicago and North Western Railway stations Former railway stations in Wisconsin Queen Anne architecture in Wisconsin Railway stations in the United States opened in 1896 {{Wisconsin-NRHP-stub