Slowly, painstakingly—one window sill, one restored door, one light fixture at a time—the old Union Station railroad depot on Fourth Street is being renovated after sitting abandoned for decades. At least two more years of work lies ahead.
But its owner is in a hurry to capture something that could soon be lost forever—memories of when Union Station was central to the lives of Hendersonians, the stepping-off point for new experiences.
“The depot was the gateway to this community in so many ways,” Allen Brown II, president and CEO of depot owner Railmark Holdings Inc., said in an interview with the Hendersonian.
“People going to war, people going to college,” he said.
“We need to hear their stories about what the depot meant to them,” he said, even if it means coming second- or third-hand from children or grandchildren. Which is likely, considering the last passenger train pulled out of Henderson on April 30, 1971.
Some stories Brown has already heard. Like that of the Henderson man who went off to fight in World War II, leaving behind a wife and five-year-old son. With no money for entertainment, they would walk to the depot each day to watch the trains; the boy befriended porters who would let him ride on the baggage wagons they pulled along the platform.
Or the railroad track worker who, during the Depression, convinced a railroad to let him and his family live in one of its “camp cars”—old boxcars outfitted with bunk beds where traveling track crews would bed down while in town.
But Brown is eager for more. “We need to hear their stories about what the depot meant to them,” he said.
He’d love to scan old photos as well, especially of the interior, and would gratefully receive any artifacts from the depot that people might have. People can contact him at TalkToRailmark@railmark.com.
“We’re going to great lengths to do this right,” Brown said of his years-long effort to restore key elements of the depot, which he estimates is more than halfway complete. “There’s only one chance to do this right.”
But while he strives to restore as much as possible of the bones of the 1902-era building—which he said was magnificent for a small-town train depot of the time, with its brick-and-stone construction, mostly-gone marble fixtures, decorative tile floors, soaring ceilings and even a lunch room—he needs memories to breathe new life into the old depot, which he wants to preserve at his Railmark Foundation website, railmark.org.
“I want the public to help,” Brown said.
Those who want a sense of what’s possible can view the restored Railway Express Agency building—the UPS office of its day—adjacent to the depot. Once “almost in shambles,” its sliding wooden doors have been refinished and the ceiling has been restored using period wood. Outside, the metal cart that was used to haul parcels to a waiting baggage car has been repainted.
Brown takes pains to make use of every scrap possible from the old Union Station—a prize piece will be its old train arrivals and departures board, which is on temporary loan to the Evansville Museum.
Union Station opened July 1, 1902, consolidating the individual passenger stations formerly operated here by the Louisville & Nashville, Illinois Central and Louisville, St. Louis & Texas railroads—hence, its name. By 1922, 24 passenger trains a day stopped there.
After Union Station saw its last passenger train in 1971, the L&N used the depot for offices for switch and signal operators until abandoning the building in August 1978.
Already, the former depot was ailing. The city condemned it in 1979, but citizen activists stepped in. While they kept the wrecking ball at bay, local history buffs didn’t have the resources to renovate the building, which slowly deteriorated as rainwater seeped into the basement and pigeons took up residence inside.
The city of Henderson eventually took ownership of the depot, and in 2015 it hired Michael Martin’s Architectural Renovators LLC to start stabilization efforts. Railmark Holdings acquired it in 2021.
The depot will serve as the central operations center for Railmark, a railroad services company with 38 employees in 10 states. Brown hopes to move his office from the REA building into the depot this year, with other employees occupying space in the north and south ends of the building in 2026.
As such, the interior of the depot won’t duplicate what Union Station once looked like, with its various waiting rooms, ticket office and lunch room. But it will mimic the old station with restored and reproduction doors, stained-glass windows and other features.
And in 2027, he hopes to rebuild the roofed trackside passenger platform so it can be used as an event venue.
But, Brown said, “It would be a lot in vain if we didn’t have the stories.”
