Dublin Citizen Newspaper
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Depot was one of four spotlight depots that the Katy railroad decided to build in the late 1920s. When describing the Dublin depot, the Katy Flyer published by the Katy Railroad Historical Society said it was “perhaps the most well-designed combination station ever built on the Katy system.”
Time has been kind to the depot. There are no large cracks in the brickwork, signs and outlines of lettering are still visible and the colored signals are even intact. The only major changes came from the conversion when city employees used the building for offices in the 1970s.
The front of the building facing Patrick Street had been walled up, benches were removed and new drop-ceilings were installed. As part of an Eagle Scout project in the 1990s, Dublin Boy Scouts restored some of the building to its original condition by returning the front to the open-air waiting area it once was.
This depot actually sprang from the tragic destruction of another. The railroad came to Dublin in the 1880s with the Texas Central Railroad, which was acquired by the M-K-T Katy Railroad in 1910. The original Katy Depot was destroyed in a fire in 1917, which made the way for another. In 1928, the railroad decided Dublin was a prime location for one of their spotlight depots.
The 25- by 158-foot facility was announced in the June 8, 1928, Dublin Progress and was completed on Oct. 12 of that year. The Dublin station was part of a line that went from Waco to Rotan with a 40.6-mile spur from DeLeon to Cross Plains.
The Great Depression hit Texas Central Railroad hard with less freight and much less passenger transportation recorded. In 1950, passenger services were discontinued from Waco to DeLeon, and Katy completely left the line in 1967 when they sold it.
The Texas Central Railroad found rejuvenation in 1973 when it was bought for Birdsong Peanuts. Birdsong bought the lines and began making small runs along DeLeon and into Gorman, where they would drop empty boxcars, which would be filled with locally-grown peanuts and transported back for connection with Santa Fe Railroad. Although there were only five employees when the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported on Texas Central in the late 1980s, it was still reported to be aiding in the transportation of 70,000 tons of peanuts annually, which translated to $40 to 50 million of product.
It was so prosperous that many remember Texas Central as the Texas Peanut Line these days and it was dubbed the “Route of the Golden Goober.”
The most recent trek from the historic depot was in 2005 as Dublin, DeLeon and Gorman joined together for the Doodle Bug excursion train. Events were held at each stop and some prominent locals even donned bandanas and staged a great train robbery around Gorman.