Columbia Station - Columbia, Pennsylvania
N 40° 01.855 W 076° 30.418
18T E 371420 N 4432276
In 1871, Wilson Brothers & Company, Philadelphia architects, selected native blue limestone for this Italianate-style Pennsylvania Railroad passenger station.
Waymark Code: WMD6B8
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 11/25/2011
Views: 5
A description of the station building is contained within the 'National Register of Historic Places - Nomination Form', dated August 31, 1982 (see page 61), a .pdf copy of which is available at
Historicbridges.org. The authors of the Form have apprised the condition/integrity of the station as 'good' to 'very good', and ranked the building as architecturally 'significant'. They note that the contractor for the building was Columbia's own W. W. Upp. Here is their narrative survey for the Columbia Station:
A 2-story structure constructed of white limestone. It has a slightly projecting central bay, full first story porch and flat roof. Composed of nearby quarried York County stone, dressed and laid in a stylized, irregular fashion, it features scabbed granite sills, quoining, voussoirs, keystones, belt course, and string courses below its cornice all of which accentuate its formal balance. The seven bay facade has a slightly projecting central bay flanked by symmetrical side sections. The central bay has paired, segmental-headed 2:2 windows with segmental arches with windows beneath arches that are not as stylized as those on the first. The second story stonework is not as precise as that of the first. In the 19th century, the second story windows were protected by striped-canvas awnings. Each flanking section has an entry. Both recessed doorways have elongated, oblique, glass top panels with square, wooden base sections set in double doors beneath deep segmental oblique glassed transoms. The left section doors have been re-hung towards the front of the frame. The width of the first level is covered by a flat, deep porch supported by slender iron columns with simple collars. The ground was bricked in the past. The building is capped by a projecting bolding bracketed, galvanized iron cornice and crowned by a pediment block at center proclaiming "Columbia". The basement has a stone foundation and brick arched supports. The ground is bricked over on the right side for storage space. A doorway, now blocked, once led in from the outside. The building abuts at the northwest corner into a massive, one-story concrete block warehouse/manufacturing addition. When first occupied, the interior was divided on the first story into ladies and gentlemen's waiting rooms, side rooms, ticket office, etc. The second was partitioned into offices for the Engineers of the Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad at the east end and railroad management elsewhere. Now [1982], the interior is used for office and lunch room space. The second story has been removed. A drop ceiling has replaced it due to its deteriorating condition. The warehouse, innocuous as it is, fades into the background leaving the station prominent.