The Centralia Union Depot, also known as Centralia Union Station, is an Amtrak train station in Centralia, Washington, United States. It is served by the Cascades and Coast Starlight trains. The building was constructed in 1912 for the Northern Pacific Railroad and replaced an earlier depot. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1988.
The city became a railroad center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, known for coal, mined metals, and timber freight, as well as numerous passenger trains passing through the area. Centralia adopted the nickname, "Hub City", as a result. The city's first depot was built beginning in 1890, followed by a larger station in 1905. Union Station is a long and narrow brick structure with three separate buildings connected by two breezeways. The two-story main terminal, with a dominant hip roof and gable, contains a coved ceiling as well as original fixtures, millwork and other features. An intensive restoration project was undertaken in the mid-1990s to renovate and repair the historic building.
Amtrak service began at the station in 1971 and , the railroad track and platforms are owned by BNSF Railway. The depot, located in the Centralia Downtown Historic District, is owned by the city, part of a $1 purchase agreement in 1994.
Description The Centralia Union Depot is located on Railroad Avenue between Magnolia and Pine streets in the Centralia Downtown Historic District. The station's north-south layout sits parallel to the train tracks. The east facade faces the tracks and the west side facing the downtown core.
The depot was added to the National Register of Historic Places and the Washington State Heritage Register on May 19, 1988. The NRHP nomination noted the station's importance to the city's history as well as Centralia's major railroad connections to the region. The economic railroad boom of Centralia during the early 20th century, and the depot's focal point in the city's downtown district, were also recognized in the historical designation.
The Centralia Union Station is similar in architectural style to other medium-sized city train stations in the state, such as the Ellensburg station and Yakima's Burlington Northern Passenger Depot. The Centralia Union Depot has remained the only such of its architectural type to continue passenger operations. Along with the NRHP-listed Burlington Northern Depot in Chehalis, Centralia Union Station has served as a halfway travel point between the Columbia River and Puget Sound.
Service The station is served by two Amtrak lines with seven daily round trips. The Cascades travels from Seattle to Portland, Oregon, with six daily trips; several trips also continue south to Eugene, Oregon, and north to Vancouver, British Columbia. The Coast Starlight has one daily train through Centralia on its route between Seattle and Los Angeles.
The station became a flag stop, or an on-demand stop for boarding or disembarking passengers, for Amtrak in June 1971.
In 2017, Amtrak and WSDOT proposed to no longer provide staff for the depot, citing an increase in automated and online transactions by passengers.
Background
Railroad beginnings Northern Pacific Railroad (NPR) completed a rail line between Kalama and Olympia in 1872, connecting the city of Centerville to the region. The community was renamed to Centralia in 1883 and the rail company began building a rail bridge in 1890 over the Skookumchuck River near the town. As part of an agreement to connect the city with the newly constructed rail lines, the community was required to build a depot and provide NPR with a right of way. The city was to welcome Northern Pacific president, Henry Villard, in 1883. The newly built station was decorated with a large archway and a celebration was prepared. Villard's train passed by the depot without stopping.
Northern Pacific Depot, 1890 The wood-framed Northern Pacific Depot was built beginning in 1890 and opened by March 1892; it remained for a time as the only such station between the Northern Pacific terminuses. President Benjamin Harrison visited Centralia on May 6, 1891, during a whistle stop tour. Harrison made a brief speech in the rain to a crowd of a few hundred people. The building was expanded beginning in 1901 which included a larger railyard and connections to new lines.
Northern Pacific Depot, 1905 The first depot was replaced with a larger, wooden station at Third Street in 1905. Based on the architectural design of the red-brick depot, the building was given the moniker, "Noah's Ark". In 1911, a petition request was sent to Northern Pacific to supply the depot with a "matron", providing protection for young women from dangerous people at the station who might lead "young girls to ruin". A matron was appointed that July.
The city of Centralia's early railroad economy, and numerous transpiration corridors of rail lines, rivers, and roads, led the community to be known as the "Hub City". Main freight handling and shipments of the two early stations included coal, mined metals such as gold and iron, and timber and timber-manufactured products. By the early 20th century, an average of 60 trains per day were recorded passing through or stopping in Centralia.
During the early 1910s, the second depot was criticized in the local press for its appearance, considering it "just as bad" as the station in Chehalis. Northern Pacific purchased a parcel for a new depot in early 1910, with an original construction cost estimated at $50,000, . A severe snowstorm in January 1912 led to telegraph and telephone service outages in the city. Some wires, which ran through the depot, were severed leading to short circuiting of the station's telephone switchboard and causing a small fire.
History
The Centralia Union Depot, also known as Union Station, was built to accommodate a 400% population boom in the area from 1900 to 1914. By 1912, an average of 22 passenger trains traveled through Centralia, and an additional 22 trains per day were operated by six branch lines. Led by requests from the Centralia Commercial Club and other prominent members in the community, the station was constructed and opened by Northern Pacific Railway (NPR) in 1912. Approximately 500 laborers completed the effort. The station was larger and more expensive than the Burlington Northern Depot in nearby Chehalis that was being constructed at approximately the same time.
Initially estimated to cost $500,000, , the $750,000 depot was formally dedicated on June 1, 1912, during Centralia's first Hub City Festival. The attending crowd was considered the largest ever assembled in the city at the time. The dedication, which was to also celebrate the city's new high school, library, and recently moved post office, was overseen by Centralia judge George Dysart. The ceremonial address was given by George T. Reid, a council for Northern Pacific. Approximately 100 representatives of various railroad companies attended the event. The depot was christened by airplane, with dropped champagne bottles by local aviator, Claude Berlin; the bottles broke several of the roof's tiles.
Within two years after its opening, Centralia Union Depot was being served by 44 passenger trains and 17 freight trains daily. The station, which also contained a 20-stall railway roundhouse that was built in 1913, faced 14 hotels along Tower Avenue, as well as 5 theaters and 8 banks in the downtown core. Western Union rented office space at the station during its early operations. Union Pacific began operating out of the roundhouse, fueling their trains with coal from the nearby mines of Tono. Additional railroad companies to use the station included Great Northern Railway and the Oregon-Washington Railroad and Navigation Company, along with various branch lines that linked to other communities in Southwest Washington, including Grays Harbor and South Bend.
An artesian well was discovered in 1916 below the basement after water began to seep through a crack in the concrete. The well slowly began to flood the space and eventually cracked a larger section of cement. The railroad installed a steam pump to control the water.
Early Amtrak era
Northern Pacific later merged into Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) in 1970, and Amtrak began operating passenger rail service on the Seattle–Portland route on May 1, 1971. Amtrak trains initially did not stop in Centralia but were added during a service change on July 12, 1971. In early 1972, passengers were permanently diverted from the Chehalis Depot to Centralia. The two depots merged their operations and employees in Centralia beginning in January 1973; the Chehalis station was officially closed the next month.
The demise of Northern Pacific, coupled with increased automobile traffic on Interstate 5, saw the Centralia Union Depot deteriorate, much as the city's downtown core was experiencing economic decline. Local civic leaders recognized the problem during the mid-1980s and began a two-decade project that would see the structure acquired by the city and restored as part of a larger downtown revitalization project. The city began a tourism initiative in 1992 known as Destination Centralia. By 1996, the program noted 22,000 visitors came to the city via the depot by passenger rail.
Restoration
Under the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), the station was purchased in 1994 for $1; the agency transferred ownership to Centralia. Burlington Northern continued to own the land and the sale required the city to maintain the structure for 25 years. The 1996 merger of Burlington Northern with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to form the BNSF Railway (BNSF) spurred both the city and the state's Department of Transportation Rail Branch to negotiate with BNSF to fully acquire the depot. The city had planned for the station to become a "transportation hub", connecting the depot to a larger high-speed rail corridor. Ideas also included connecting the station to the county's Twin Transit bus system. The renovation of the station was also part of a larger, urban renewal of the city's historic downtown.
Following the purchase, the city began the design process for the historic restoration which took place over three phases. During the renovation in 1996, Amtrak announced a potential closure of the depot's ticket office, which at the time, was the only such staffed Amtrak office between Kelso and Tacoma. Citing low ridership numbers and decreasing revenue, Amtrak postulated that the office would remain open if ticket sales increased from $20,000 per month to $30,000. The restoration project was completed in April 2002 and celebrated in the city's "Railroad Days" festival. The total cost of the project was recorded between $4.4 million and $4.8 million.
In 2000, space at the station was leased to a consulting firm and the second floor of the terminal was rented to a local business after the restoration. By 2004, the depot was temporarily used by the Centralia Police Department. The main lobby, intended as rental space after the renovation, was instead used as a community multi-purpose area.
The Centralia Post Office offered a special pictorial cancellation in 2012 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the depot. The postmark stamp pictured an oncoming steam locomotive. The depot was adorned with an historical plaque in 2024 that featured a QR code, allowing visitors access to a website detailing the history of the station. The effort was authorized by the Centralia Historic Preservation Commission and undertaken by the Centralia Downtown Association, a member of Main Street America.
Notable events and incidents