Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad Depot (Galesburg, Illinois)

The Nebraska Zephyr stopping at the depot in 1968

The Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad Depot was a station in Galesburg, Illinois. The CB&Q station was housed in three different buildings, until the final building was demolished in 1983.

History

The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad was established in 1849 to rival the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad. Five years later, in 1854, the CB&Q reached Galesburg a depot was constructed in the "Five Points" area, near Knox College. The wooden building had two stories, with offices on the second floor, and was connected to a hotel. In 1858, Stephen Douglass traveled through this station on his way to debate future president Abraham Lincoln. On March 1, 1881, the depot fell victim to a fire.^[1]

1884 saw the construction of a new CB&Q depot on Seminary St. in Galesburg.^[2] The station, unlike the station at Five Points, was made of red brick. The structure was two stories tall, and included a clock tower in the center, with a steam locomotive weather-vane. It also had several platforms and tracks. Soon after the completion of the new depot, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway arrived in Galesburg and a Santa Fe depot was built just blocks away from the CB&Q depot, a depot, which, by the mid-20th century, would see such notable trains as the Super Chief and El Capitan. Ironically, despite being built of brick, unlike its predecessor, it wound up falling victim to a similar fate almost exactly 30 years later. On May 27, 1911, a fire began in the attic of the building and the structure burned to the ground.

Work began on a third structure soon after, and the building opened the following year. The third depot was 16,000 square feet, of reddish-brown brick and white limestone trim. Extra buildings would be added for freight and restaurants at each end of the main station house.^[2] Beginning in the mid-1930s, the CB&Q introduced their famous Zephyr trains this depot became a station on several of the trains, including the Nebraska Zephyr, Ak-Sar-Ben Zephyr and Denver Zephyr. It was also a station on the Exposition Flyer, operated jointly between the CB&Q, Denver & Rio Grande Western and Western Pacific railroads between Chicago and Oakland, a train which would later be replaced by the famed California Zephyr. The depot eventually would serve Burlington Northern trains between 1970 and 1971 and later Amtrak trains post 1971. By the early 1980s, however, Burlington Northern officials began to question the necessity and practicality of having such a large depot in the face of declining passenger service. Following a study that stated that it would cost $1.5 million to renovate the building, the building was demolished overnight on May 13, 1983.^[2]

In 1984, a one-story Amtrak station was built with funds donated partially by the passenger railroad, and the Illinois Department of Transportation. It now serves four trains a day in each direction; the California Zephyr, Carl Sandburg, Illinois Zephyr, and the Southwest Chief.

References