Kirkwood, MO, Rolla Subdivision, MP 12.7

In 2006, I posted a thread that inquired about the location of the Kirkwood, MO depot.

I received a few replies and they all suggested that the depot had been located near where the current BN tracks cross Kirkwood Road (Lindbergh) and that the depot was demolished long ago.

However, in today's, 2/28/2009, edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Lifestyle Section", there is an interesting article about a couple who have remodeled and currently live in the former Frisco Kirkwood depot building.

The location is on Barberry near the current BN tracks. This is off of Big Bend Road about a 1/4 mile west of Interstate 270 in Kirkwood, and is almost 2 miles from the suggested depot location at Kirkwood Road (Lindbergh).

Can anyone shed any further light on this?

Were there 2 Kirkwood depots, one that still exists on Barberry as described in the newspaper article and another one at Kirkwood Road that has been demolished?

 

The station was called "Meramec Highlands" or, later, "Osage Hills", the site of a popular resort circa 1900.

Here is the thread:

http://www.frisco.org/vb/showthread.php?t=1917

There was also a tunnel nearby that has since been bricked up.

http://www.frisco.org/vb/showthread.php?t=1088

In the book Frisco Power by Joe Collias there is a photograph on page 292 of the site in its heyday, prior to the building of the stone depot.

For a 1950s view of the depot, refer to page 94 of Trackside around St. Louis 1952-1959 with Jim Ozment by James Sandrin, though it erroneously places the station on the "Memphis" Division.

Rich

 

Back in 2006 when I posted virtually the same question about the location of the Kirkwood depot, I guess some of our members were on the extra board and there were few replies.

However, this time the replies really contained some good stuff.

I want to thank all who replied to shed some revealing information about the Kirkwood depot(s).

 

I am trying to picture where the Windsor Springs depot might have been in relation to the way things are now.

Could we see the photograph?

The 1954 Kirkwood USGS quadrangle shows a small building on the north side of the tracks on Harrison Avenue halfway between Geyer Road and Kirkwood Road.

But that is pretty far from Geyer Road, so it is not likely going to show up on a photograph of a train crossing Geyer.

 

Very nice picture indeed! Thank you for posting it. The train behind 1512 has clearly crossed to the west side of Geyer Road. The diverging of the tracks in the foreground show that. I do note the little hip-roofed building in the background behind the train. It is on the east side of Geyer, but it is hard to tell whether it is north or south of the tracks.

The crossing at Geyer and Big Bend is complex and angles on things looking east along the tracks can be confusing. I would put the location of the building in the picture at the rear of the train on what is now an empty triangle of land north of Big Bend and east of Geyer but on the south side of the tracks.

The 1893 Official Guide says "Kirkwood" is at m.p. 12.7 and "Windsor Springs" is at 13.0, a mere 0.3 miles apart. Picking points off the USGS 1954 map shows the distance from Kirkwood Road (Lindbergh) and the crossing of Big Bend to be about 0.5 miles. I guess rounding mileposts to the nearest tenth mile can separate the two stations by 0.4 miles and that would just about fit the depot in the triangle. The railroad continues to maintain that land by mowing it a couple times in the summer. The only occupants are a couple power transmission poles and a groundhog or two.

I believe there is a milepost 13 located on the railroad, but it is closer to Harrison Ave than it is to Geyer Road, and that point is a short ways east of the open land.

It has been fun to learn about the "neighborhood" on this site; I will come back to read and talk about more.

 

I just got back from the Kirkwood Public Library and a look at the St. Louis County Plat Book for 1909. It has a lot of answers.

South Webster depot was where Selma Avenue crossed the Frisco tracks. This is about four blocks west of Old Orchard following Big Bend (Bompart/Edgar, Plymouth and Selma). It is about five blocks east of the Main Webster Groves depot.

The plat books show the Windsor Springs depot was on the north side of the tracks in 1909, but was west of Geyer Road in the angle formed by the tracks and Big Bend Road.

The picture of SLSF 1512 and its train at that location earlier in the thread appears to be crossing Geyer Road around the fourth or fifth car.

If the station is still in the 1909 location, the train is hiding it. If the building behind the train is the depot, then it was moved east of Geyer Road by 1930.

This calls for more research!

 

It was great fun looking it up.

As for the other Kirkwood depot locations on the Frisco, my source right now is a map of 1909 Kirkwood. The Bopp [Funeral] Chapel put as an insert to the Webster-Kirkwood Times in 1999. It reproduces the 1909 plat-book map, though not in color.

From the west the depots were located as follows.

Windsor Spring depot is north of the tracks and just west of Geyer Road.

South Kirkwood depot is north of the tracks on the west side of Webster, now Kirkwood Road in Kirkwood, but Lindbergh everywhere else!

Fairlawn depot is on the north side of the tracks between the Missouri Pacific Carondelet Line and Holmes Avenue. The Carondelet line no longer crosses the former SL-SF tracks and the part south of the tracks is now Grant's Trail.

Oakland depot is on the south side of the tracks on the east side of Sappington Road.

Periodicals from the Kirkwood Historical Society did not have pictures of any of these depots that I could find with a quick reading. It will be fun to check with the Society to see what they may have. The similar organization in Webster Groves may be worth looking up, too.

Newly retired and all this time on my hands.

 

The Kirkwood Historical Society has a copy of a "St. Louis Countian" article from January 6, 1949 about moving the Kirkwood Frisco depot from the north side of the tracks at Kirkwood Road to the south side.

This was to accommodate construction of a lumber and hardware store, Hill-Behan Lumber, on the site north of the tracks. A spur was constructed for deliveries.

The article said the Frisco building had originally been at Anaconda, MO from 1915 to 1930, then was moved to Kirkwood. From 1940 on, a Mr. E. J. Sutterfield was the agent. He had been agent in Anaconda, so he had to be familiar with the building!

The article also mentioned there was a two-story depot building prior to 1930, but I did not catch what happened to it.

There was some mention that the Kirkwood depot did offer commuter ticket sales, but by the time of the move in 1949 it only did freight business, though trains apparently did stop to pick up commuters there as late as 1949.