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“The [Amtrak] Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited both stop at Sandusky in the early morning hours. The station is unstaffed and passengers generally must wait on the platform or in their vehicles, as the station building is usually closed.
“The Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad (LS&MS) commissioned the current Sandusky Depot in 1892; it replaced an earlier structure dating to 1872. The building was also used by the Lake Erie and Western Railroad connecting Fremont, Ohio located west of Sandusky with Bloomington in north-central Illinois; the Lake Erie and Western used LS&MS trackage from Fremont to Sandusky to reach the depot. The LS&MS eventually came under the control of Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York Central Railroad which provided Sandusky with connections to points west and to the upper Midwest and New York City.
“By the end of the 19th century, the city of Sandusky had grown into a prosperous Lake Erie port and the new LS&MS Depot was a fitting tribute to the community’s regional stature. The $30,000 structure was designed by the well-known Boston firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge and built by the contracting firm of Adam Feick and Brothers. The Boston architects had taken over the firm headed by Henry Hobson Richardson upon his death in 1886, finishing many of the master’s projects and continuing on in the same aesthetic vein before diversifying later in their partnership.
“In time, work by Richardson and his followers was referred to as ‘Richardsonian Romanesque’—characterized by squat, compact buildings usually constructed with unfinished stone in dark red, tan, brown, and gray hues. The asymmetrical compositions were often pierced by deep-set, round arches reminiscent of Medieval Romanesque structures found in Europe; polychrome decoration was also a common feature.
“For Sandusky, Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge used the Richardsonian Romanesque vocabulary but adapted it to fit local conditions and materials. The building is composed of an over-sized rusticated foundation upon which rise layers of rock-faced, coursed ashlar Amherst limestone in a buff tone; the layers alternate between courses of two different heights. Local bluestone is used in the trim. A central section is flanked by two lower wings. An unusual feature of the station is a separate baggage room dressed in the same stone that is connected to the main areas of the depot by a covered, open walkway.
“The entire complex is surmounted by a hipped-gambrel roof laid with a variegated blue-green Maine Slate that provides a striking color contrast to the buff stone; this type of color juxtaposition was important in Richardsonian Romanesque structures. The edge of the roof as it runs the length of the station and extends down the walkway creates a strong horizontal line associated with the Prairie style structures then being built by architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright. The horizontality of the station is only broken by the chimney and triangular gables on both the trackside and street side facades that feature compressed Palladian windows typical of Richardson’s work.
“The trackside façade is marked by the strong rhythm of rectangular three paneled doors with lights and one-over-one windows; these openings are crowned with one course of stone and then one-light transoms. The transition between the central portion and the wings is highlighted by three sided bays with shallow, conical roofs that intersect the primary hipped-gambrel roofs of the building; visually, this produces an exciting undulating surface. The deep, exaggerated eaves are born by large, sturdy brackets supported on stone bases that project from the walls. The side elevations feature triplet windows.
“Typical of its time, the depot had separate waiting rooms to accommodate each gender, as well as a ticket and telegraph office. The telegraph lines early followed the tracks west, and the railroad relied on telegraph communication to pass vital information on to stations and train crew. The interior featured oak trim around the doors and windows, and a band of oak wainscoting on the bottom portion of the walls was complimented on the wall above by a textured ‘sand-finished’ plaster.
“Sandusky plays an early role in Ohio’s rail history, as it was an original terminus for the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad. Chartered by the state legislature in 1832 and envisioned to run between the lakeside city and Dayton to the southwest, it was the first rail line located entirely in Ohio. Construction did not begin for another three years, but the groundbreaking was marked by a 24-gun salute. The most prominent guest was General William Henry Harrison, future president of the United States and at that time a retired Senator from Ohio. With the governor of Ohio and the president and officers of the railroad, Harrison helped inaugurate construction of the line. By 1848, the $1.75 million railroad had reached 134 miles south to Springfield, Ohio where it connected with the Little Miami Railroad to provide service to Cincinnati on the Ohio River.
“The first steam locomotive to ply the tracks was the Sandusky, which had been shipped from Paterson, New Jersey via the Erie Canal and then Lake Erie aboard a ship that also happened to be named the Sandusky. The original Mad River and Lake Erie Depot rose in 1838 at the northwest corner of Jackson and Water Streets and later became a lumber warehouse. The Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad through many consolidations, mergers, and reorganizations eventually came under the ownership of the Big Four—the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railway—which in 1930 was leased by the New York Central System.”
The Sandusky Station is on the National Register of Historic Places.