Kemp and Kell Depot - Wichita Falls, TX - Train Stations/Depots on Waymarking.com

"The existing building is structurally sound, although only half of it still remains, the other half having been destroyed by fire on February 10, 1974. A photograph taken between 1947 and 1949 included in this report shows the building as it was originally built except for the alterations in the facade on the right, the part which is now gone.

After all railroad offices moved out in 1920, cafes and shops, including the American Express Office, remained. In I925, the lower floors of the western section became the bus station for ten different regional stage lines.

Railroading possibly more than any other factor was responsible for the founding, settlement, growth and stature of Wichita Falls. The Kemp and Kell Depot, a building of outstanding character with fine masonry detail, is the oldest railroading structure left in Wichita Falls. It was built by two grain and railroad entrepreneurs who were responsible for much of the early economic development of the community. These two men constructed a network of lines out of Wichita Falls into the surrounding area insuring markets for cattle, grain, coal, and later oil, and gave Wichita Falls a route not only from the Gulf to the Rockies but to St. Louis and the Northeast as well. This building was where much of the early planning and financial dealings took place, in the offices of the Wichita Falls Route and the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway. It only served as the main depot building for the city for three years when a grand building known as the Union Station was completed adjacent to it, but it was still used as part of this transportation complex for many years thereafter. Now that the Union Depot has been destroyed, this building is the oldest structure pertaining to this railroading legacy the city contains."