Ramsey County History – Summer 2013: “St. Paul Union Depot: Decline and Rebirth”

St. Paul Union Depot: Decline and Rebirth
Author: John W. Diers

St. Paul’s first Union Depot opened in 1881, but it was destroyed by fire in 1884. Fire also destroyed its replacement in 1913. This article is about the building of the third depot, which took place between 1917 and 1926, at a cost of $15 million, on the same site as its two predecessors. Practical rather than pretentious in design, the third depot was, in its heyday, the largest and most important rail station west of Chicago and the third largest handler of mail in the US. It was owned and operated by the nine railroads that served St. Paul. Americans’ preference for travelling by automobile and later airplane rapidly undermined rail passenger traffic, and the depot closed in 1971. A few years later, the US Post Office moved its mail operations elsewhere, making the depot a huge liability. The Ramsey County Regional Rail Authority purchased the depot in 2008 and over time was able to restore this majestic building for use by Metro Transit, intercity buses, Amtrak, and the Central Corridor Light Rail service. It reopened in December 2012 at a cost of $243 million.
PDF of Diers article