This listing can be a bit of a challenge to find, because for as long as anyone knows, this depot has just been called "Union Station." But the listing is ACTUALLY filed under the depot's historic name as the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Passenger and Freight Depot.
This amazing Mission Revival building was finished in 1918, and in 2016 is nearing the end of a MAJOR spruce-up and outdoor parking and street connection rebuilding project.
From the nomination form, available on the NPS website: (
visit link)
"Narrative:
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Passenger and Freight Depot (San Bernardino Depot), located at 1170 West 3rd Street in San Bernardino, California is the best example and largest structure of Mission Revival style architecture in the City of San Bernardino. Designed by W. A. Mohr, a Los Angeles architect employed by the Santa Fe for this project, the building maintains a horizontal orientation and asymmetrical composition. The Depot is also consistent with the conventions of the Mission Revival style architecture with added Moorish influence created by the four massive domes to the four towers on the main structure. It is also the last depot built by the Santa Fe in the Mission Revival style. When the San Bernardino Depot was completed in 1918, it was second only in size in all of California to the Southern Pacific's Union Station in Los Angeles. Built in the heyday of railroad travel, an era when railroads designed depots as cathedrals to themselves, this Depot was unique in its design throughout the Santa Fe system. Except for the San Diego Depot built in 1914, other depots elsewhere along the Santa Fe were mostly Carpenter Gothic in style similar to the former 1886 San Bernardino Depot. . . .
8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
Summary
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Passenger and Freight Depot (San Bernardino Depot) is significant at the state level under Criterion C in the area of architecture as a very good example of Mission Revival design. The building is one of the largest Mission Revival railroad stations built in California. The "picturesque pile" (Gebhard and Winter) is a cornucopia of Mission Revival elements: scalloped parapets, red tile roofing, deep overhanging eaves, domed bell towers, long arcades, quatrefoil windows, round arched windows, and balconies. The building is illustrated and discussed in Karen Weitze's California Mission Revival and is included in Gebhard and Winter's Guide to Architecture in Southern California.
The Construction of the San Bernardino Depot The San Bernardino Depot was built at a cost of over $800,000 in 1918 by the Santa Fe after a devastating fire destroyed the original 1886 Carpenter Gothic style depot, divisional administration offices, and freight offices just two years previously. 2 (Refer to Figure 1) In its replacement, the City Fathers asked the railroad to design and build a new depot that would befit the city image as the "Gateway to Southern California." According to the San Bernardino Sun's report, Superintendent J.R. Hitchcock of the Santa Fe noted "San Bernardino's new depot will be in keeping with the importance of the city and of type and cost along the lines of the high standard met by the railroad company for some years in station construction." The Mission Revival style was the design choice by William A. Mohr, a Los Angeles architect employed by the Santa Fe for this project. (Refer to Historical Photo A) The resulting structure was only second in size in all of California's depots to Southern Pacific's Union Station in Los Angeles. Built in the heyday of railroad travel, an era when railroads designed depots as cathedrals to themselves, the San Bernardino Depot was uniquely designed for Santa Fe system. Instead of a carbon copy of another depot somewhere else along the Santa Fe, as was the case in many small cities and towns across the country, "It is the finest structure of its kind on the entire Santa Fe Coast Lines and a credit to San Bernardino, and is significant of the importance of the Gate City as a Transportation Center."
The present site of the San Bernardino Depot is located on land donated to the Santa Fe by the City of San Bernardino in 1886. Previous to the period of significance, San Bernardino was chosen by Santa Fe as the site for its massive Pacific Coast Locomotive Works and was also designated as a division point for the railroad in 1888. The Depot was designed to service rail passengers, move freight, and to house the divisional administration and freight offices. The San Bernardino Depot became the Los Angeles Divisional Headquarters because the Santa Fe's main yard and shop facility were located there. The Los Angeles Divisional Headquarters was responsible for the management of all stations and lines west of the Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Los Angeles Divisional Headquarters also managed the sharing of the Atlantic Pacific Railroad line from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Barstow, California and the Southern Pacific Railroad line from Barstow to San Francisco, California. The Los Angeles Divisional Headquarters was originally located at the National City Depot from 1883 until 1889 when the workshops and general offices were moved to San Bernardino. The Los Angeles Divisional Headquarters was also known as Santa Fe's West Coast Operations.
The San Bernardino Depot included a Harvey House dining facility, which quickly became a community gathering point for Sunday dinner in its east wing. The 1918 opening of the San Bernardino received a great deal of coverage in the San Bernardino Daily Sun including details of the Depot's layout and features. In 1921, the Harvey House restaurant expanded its facilities and as reported in the San Bernardino Daily Sun, the restaurant "boasted serving from 1,000 to 1,200 people between 4:00 and 10:00 p.m. on July 4, 1921."
The development of San Bernardino since the late nineteenth century has been associated particularly with the development of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. In 1886, the rail line linking San Bernardino to the east via the Cajon Pass was completed. This line greatly increased the City's importance as a transportation center, shipping thousands of carloads of oranges to the east from all parts of the Inland Empire as well as passenger traffic from all of Southern California.
Since San Bernardino was the first city seen by tourists and immigrants alike as they entered Southern California from points east, the San Bernardino Depot was designed to impress upon the traveler the financial opportunities of Southern California to the growing nation. As the Santa Fe grew in importance, so did its importance grow to the City. In the early 1900s, over 60% of the workers in the City gained their livelihood from the railroad. City residents not directly employed by the Santa Fe benefitted from its existence in other ways. In response to its local popularity as a Sunday evening dinner spot, the Harvey House restaurant within the Depot expanded in 1921. Even up until the mid-1980s when the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe still occupied the structure, the railroad employed over four thousand city residents. Not until the transfer of railroad jobs to the Midwest and the demolition of the shops and roundhouse in 1994 did the City of San Bernardino experience the loss of the Santa Fe as a major economic resource to the community.
Significance under Criterion C
The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Passenger and Freight Depot (San Bernardino Depot) in San Bernardino is one of the best examples of the large-scale combination depot designed in the Mission Revival style by the Santa Fe in the City of San Bernardino. It is the last Mission Revival style depot built by the Santa Fe in the state. The quality of the design, detailing, and scale of the San Bernardino Depot is comparable only to the Santa Fe Depot in San Diego and the Southern Pacific's Union Station in Los Angeles. It is typically classified as a "combination depot" which is designed to address three basic needs: the accommodation of passengers and their baggage, the handling of freight, and offices for railroad employees. The San Bernardino Depot's 66,000 square feet distinguishes itself as one of the most heavily used passenger and freight depots in the Santa Fe system, and its significance as the Santa Fe's Los Angeles Divisional Headquarters. As one of the first stops for passengers entering the state from the east, the design of the San Bernardino Depot, its asymmetrical configuration, arcade, bell towers, red tiled roof, and overhanging eaves are some of the features that succeeded in providing an image that corresponded with popular ideas about California's early Spanish history.
Californians began looking to their state's history for a precedent that would more accurately reflect its Spanish heritage. The search for a visual image distinct to California resulted in the Mission Revival style which reminded the nation of the long and unique early Spanish history prior to statehood. Coinciding with the real estate boom of the 1880s, a number of enterprising individuals recognized the potential of creating a romanticized image for the region that would attract tourists and potential immigrants. By the end of the century, the Mission Revival style could be found in residential and commercial, public and private building designs.
The Mission Revival offered much for the railroads, particulary the Santa Fe, who were thoroughly immersed in regional promotionalism. The Mission Revival style was admirably suited to the climate and heritage of the region. The vocabulary of the style - uninterrupted stucco surfaces, arched openings, red tile roofs, wide overhanging eaves, shaped parapets, bell towers, and quatrefoil openings, as evident in the San Bernardino Depot - was used in whole or singular to create an architecture that is specific to, and equated with, California. The Mission Revival style enjoyed a relatively brief period of popularity ending in the early 1920s. Although it was replaced soon after San Diego's Panama California Exposition of 1915 by the more adaptable Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean Revival styles, Mission Revival buildings represent the first stages of the state's new-found self-consciousness attempt toward a regional style of architecture. This style of architecture befitted the San Bernardino Depot and became the local landmark to the "Gate City."
The Harvey Houses designed by Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter contributed further to the connection between the Santa Fe Railway and styles associated with the Mission, Pueblo, and Spanish Colonial periods of history in the American west. Ms. Colter, chief architect and interior designer for the Fred Harvey Company from 1902 until 1948, "is recognized as having been among the first to have seen the importance of Indian and Spanish design and architecture in southwestern culture." In conjunction with the Harvey Company and railroad officials, Colter created a style that became identifiable not only with the region, but with the Santa Fe.
The first generation of Santa Fe depots in California were typically wood frame structures similar to those use throughout the system. The wooden buildings, however, were particularly susceptible to fire and were often destroyed by an errant spark or cinder from the steam-powered locomotives. As depots were rebuilt or replaced, the Santa Fe turned to local architectural traditions for inspiration. Although some depots were built along Neoclassical or Romanesque lines, a larger number followed current design trends in California and were built in one of the Spanish-influenced styles.
Of all the depots in Santa Fe's Los Angeles Division, only five reflect the Mission Revival influence in California. The depot at San Juan Capistrano was finished in 1894, constructed in part with materials from the nearby mission, which was in a state of deterioration. In 1909, the Santa Fe remodeled an existing station in Redondo Beach to include Mission style parapet roofs. The depot at Cardiff, which was constructed in 1913 and demolished in 1943, was similar in scale to the San Juan Capistrano depot. Only two large-scale "combination depots", located in San Diego and San Bernardino, were constructed in the Mission Revival style. The large, brick, Victorian-era depot in San Diego was demolished in 1915 to make room for the new building, which was designed by Bakewell and Brown of San Francisco. 16 The Mission Revival depot in San Bernardino, the last the Santa Fe would design in that style, replaced a large, wood frame, Carpenter Gothic building destroyed by fire in 1916. At the time of its construction, San Bernardino had become increasingly important as the Santa Fe's Los Angeles Division Headquarters. The design and scale of the building reflects the Depot's status as one of the most heavily used passenger and freight depots in the Santa Fe system, and its significance as divisional headquarters.
The San Bernardino Depot retains a high degree of its integrity in terms of its location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The Depot's historical ambiance and association remains, as the building is sited in its original location, adjacent to the Santa Fe railway. The property is bounded by the tracks of the Santa Fe Railroad on the north and 3rd Street on the south as it originally was in 1918. . . .
The design of the Depot has had minimal changes since its original construction in 1918 and the expansion of the Harvey House restaurant and east arcade in 1921. Other changes include the early 1920s addition of the two small wooden wind locks to the north entrances of the waiting area and Harvey House. The greatest impact to the Depot's original historic fabric, however, are the 1960s infill of most of the windows on the south and west facades. Most historic fabric remains intact including original terra cotta tiles in the brown hues, door and window hardware, and interior light fixtures in the main lobby area.
. . .
Conclusion
The San Bernardino Depot and its character-defining features continue to evoke the ambiance of railroad traveling. It is an important example of the use of the Mission Revival style in conveying California's Spanish mission heritage to ongoing visitors as they enter San Bernardino, the "Gate City." The tall, stately Depot can be seen for miles and its presence on the west side of the city conveys a constant visual reminder of the once great economic influence of the Santa Fe Railroad on the City of San Bernardino."