South Dearborn and Polk Streets
Opened 1885
Architect: Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz
|
Opened for business in 1885, the Dearborn Street Station served as the primary departure point for long-distance passenger trains to southern California and the Southwest. Its most notable railroad tenant, the Santa Fe Railway, operated several daily trains between Chicago and Los Angeles. Trains such as the Super Chief and the El Capitan were highly regarded among travellers, including many celebrities who regularly rode the Santa Fe between Chicago and Hollywood. Not suprisingly then, celebrity sightings were an almost daily occurance at the station during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s.
But Dearborn was also an important place in the lives of average Chicagoans, many of whom passed through the station for the first time as children, heading west with their parents on a family vacation to the Grand Canyon. Although very much a part of Chicago's urban landscape, Dearborn Station was also for many the gateway to an overly romanticized world of mysterious desert landscapes and supposedly "uncivilized" Native Americans.
The station itself was an impressive sight. Its twelve-story, Romanesque clock tower dramatically set off the southern vista of Dearborn Street and could be seen many blocks away. The building's exterior walls, comprised of pink granite and red pressed brick lent the structure a sturdy, functional appearance--much in contrast to the monumentality of Union Station or North Western Station, built at a time when the nation's railroads sought to confirm their economic might through neo-classical station designs.
The original structure, built in 1885, included a number of steeply-pitched roofs, but these were eliminated when the station was rebuilt after a fire in 1922. Behind the headhouse were the train platforms, shielded by a large train shed. Inside the station were ticket counters, waiting rooms, and one of Fred Harvey's legendary train-station restaurants.
During the 1980s, the station was converted to retail and office space. The train shed was demolished in 1976, five years after all Dearborn Street passenger service was rerouted to Union Station. The rail yards have also been dismantled, replaced by apartments and townhomes.
Dearborn Station served as the Chicago passenger terminal for several railroads besides the Santa Fe. These included the Erie Railroad, with service to New York City, and the Monon Route, with trains to Indianapolis and Louisville. Toronto-bound travellers departed Dearborn Station aboard the Grand Trunk Railroad, Alabamans aboard the Chicago and Eastern Illinois, and Saint Louisans aboard the Wabash Railroad.
|
|
Page authored: 19 March 1997
|
|
|
