The following verbiage is taken from the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form to describe this building's history and it reads:
The Alturas passenger station was built in 1908 by the Nevada-California-Oregon Railway (NCO) when Alturas was the narrow gauge railroad's northern terminus. This small Queen Anne station, constructed of stone blocks, is an excellent example of its type and period and is similar in design to many of the smaller East Coast railway stations of the late 19th century. The building was used as a depot until 1938 when passenger service was discontinued. It now serves as the clubhouse for the Alturas Garden Club.
Alturas, the county seat of Modoc County, is located in the remote northeastern corner of California. The arrival of the NCO narrow gauge railroad provided the area with greatly improved transportation and played a key role in the development of the county. Construction crews began building north from Reno late in 1880 but, due to numerous legal entanglements and construction stoppages, the railroad was not completed to Alturas until December 1, 1908. In 1917, the NCO Railway sold the southern portion of its line from Reno to Hackstaff (Herlong) to the Western Pacific. This required relocating the NCO's shops and offices from Reno to a new site on the surviving portion of the line; Alturas was chosen as the new headquarters. In 1926, the remainder of the NCO's lines were sold to Southern Pacific, which began the conversion to standard gauge the next year. For a short time, the Southern Pacific operated both a standard gauge and narrow gauge on the line but dropped the narrow gauge within a few years.
The NCO depot was completed shortly after the arrival of the railroad. The chief building material was locally quarried stone; the builders were Martin and Diamond, Contractors, of Reno. When the original out-of-town location proved too inconvenient,
the building was disassembled and relocated eight blocks closer to town where it resumed its role as the railroad passenger station for Alturas for the next 23 years. The NCO was the principal means of public travel into and out of the remote northeastern corner of the state from 1908 to 1938, with daily service to Reno and Klamath Falls after the takeover by Southern Pacific. Passenger service was terminated in 1938. The building was then used for railroad crew housing and eventually vacated. In 1962, the old station was acquired by the Alturas Garden Club as a meeting place. It has also been used for church meetings, weddings, receptions, pot luck suppers, and other gatherings. Rental fees help to maintain the building and its grounds.
The old NCO passenger station is unusual in the context of California railroad architecture by virtue of its stone construction and its late Queen Anne styling. It is a simple, straightforward design for a small station, although the styling is somewhat anachronistic for the date of construction. It is a style which was seldom used in California and has a much stronger affinity with late 19th century railroad station design for smaller towns in the eastern United States. It is a handsome survivor of its era and strongly retains its historic character in its adaptive reuse as a clubhouse. The tracks beside the building are still in use for Southern Pacific freight service.