I belong to the Mounds Historical Society in Mounds, OK, about 20 miles south of Tulsa. At one time we had an old train depot here. The town of Mounds in it's early beginnings moved twice to meet where they were laying the train track route! All that is left now is the foundation. I am in the process of learning how to write grants so that we can rebuild a replica of the original depot someday. What steps do I need to take and who to contact to find photos, blueprints and measurements of what this depot looked like? I can't even find anything online when it was destroyed or why? This project will take a while since we just now are getting the museum built and going, but this is something I want to look into and possibly even have a real caboose restored and setting on the property. From what I understand, in Bristow Oklahoma where they restored their depot, bought their depot land from Frisco for $1. Are there legal things I need to look into before ever thinking about building near the railroad track location where the foundation is? Do you have any suggestions where I can find more history and info on this depot? Anything will be helpful!
True enough, back a way's, Frisco used to lease land $ 1.00 for 99 years. In some area's Depot's were give to the City. In 1987 or close, I got orders to burn all out buildings. It was mainly Taxes on buildings that caused them to take a hard look at how badly they needed the structure. Then started the eruption of portable structures, the lease was Tax Deductable at the time.
I knew the reason the BN knocked down my beloved Rolla depot in the 1980's was for good, sound business practice, but I'll never forgive them! At least I got three nice platform bricks out of the rubble. The bricks are set in our backyard patio now. As I have often said, at night, in the dark, sitting out there relaxing with an adult beverage or two in me, I can still hear echos of 1500's, 4100's, 4300's, 4400's, 4500's, F3's, GP7's, E7's, E8's, GP35's, SD45's, the Will Rogers, The Meteor, etc, etc, etc still pounding by those bricks. Ken
I've been looking for photos of the Mounds depot for over 20 years but have never found one (my grandmother was from Mounds) The station was located between 14th and 15th street on the east side of the tracks. An old Sanborn map shows you where on this thread: http://www.frisco.org/vb/showthread.php?2725-Mounds-Ok-Station&p=17324#post17324 I have a couple of floorplans as well I can email you if send me a PM with your address. I'll have to dig around my files, but since I've not found any pictures of the actual depot, I've collected a few other Frisco depot pics that I believe approximate what it looked like with similar floor plans. That would be really neat if you guys could rebuild it! -Mike
This is exactly what happened in Tulsa to the Union Depot. My father in law, Neil Wright, was a clerk for the Frisco when the Frisco abandoned the Union Depot sometime after passenger service stopped in 1967. The Frisco offered to give or sell for $1.00 (I can't remember what he said) the depot to the city of Tulsa, but because the railroad was paying taxes on the building, the city would not accept the offer. Consequently, the building sat vacant and deteriorated for many years while being vandalized not only by vagrants but also by people from affluent parts of Tulsa who wanted the beautiful marble and the chandeliers from the white waiting room. He was asked by someone for permission to take a chandelier, but, of course, he could not give it. However, they disappeared anyway. They must have had help from some one because those chandeliers were difficult to reach due to the high ceilings in the white waiting room. It is a shame that the city was so short sighted at the time because maybe more of the original appearance of the depot could have been preserved. I am certainly glad that most of the building has been saved if not in the original scheme. Tulsa has lost many of its beautiful old buildings because of short sightedness in the past, but, thankfully, because of tax credits they are now being restored and repurposed with, ironically, increased taxes coming to the city. These tax credit programs could have been a great tool back in the day to preserve more of those old buildings. Terry Jankowski
