Grant Street Station - Wausau, WI
N 44° 57.728 W 089° 37.212
16T E 293351 N 4982083
The old train station at 720 Grant St in Wausau, WI now serves as the Marathon County Headstart building.
Waymark Code: WM27MM
Location: Wisconsin, United States
Date Posted: 09/18/2007
Views: 219
When I stopped to photograph this old depot, I never realized it was so famous. It inspired the image used for Wausau Insurance. There is a great article at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Some excerpts:
"As a Wausau Daily Herald story declared in 1989, "San Francisco has its bridge; New York has its statue; St. Louis has its arch and Wausau has its railroad depot."
Actually, it has three of them, two retired from the train game and one that never heard an arriving engine's whistle. Naturally, that's the famous one.
The funny thing is, for a city so linked to its railroad depot, Wausau spent a long time waiting for a train. In 1870, the Wisconsin Central Railroad was interested in coming to Wausau, but farmers objected to the indebtedness that would bring, so the line went instead to Stevens Point, Wausau's bitter rival down the road. It was, one city history said, "a particularly irritating blow to the citizens of Wausau because relations between that town and Stevens Point were not good."
...
Eventually train service was an important part of Wausau's growth, but as happened everywhere, railroads lost their place in an automotive world and passenger service was ended. One of the city's two depots was converted to a bus depot and later to a Chinese restaurant, but the other went on to a new career in modeling as the trademark image of Wausau Insurance, a role it has played now for almost 50 years."
The Wausau City web site gives this information:
"When you think of Wausau you probably envision the railroad depot created by Wausau Insurance Companies for a corporate logo. You can't find the depot pictured in the ads because it was drawn by an artist combining one depot building with the view of the city skyline from another depot.
The depot featured in the logo still stands at 720 Grant Street. After Wausau Insurance Companies bought the building in 1977, a faithful reproduction was constructed at its corporate headquarters for advertising purposes and the Grant Street depot was donated to the Boy Scouts."
photo from the Wausau Insurance web site