In the News

Rock Island Depot in Perry, Arkansas is at New Location, Roof will be the Next Priority

3/1/2020
Hibblen Radio

(March 1, 2020) – If you haven’t been following the project to save the Rock Island’s depot in Perry, Arkansas, then it’s hard to convey just how exciting it is to see the old passenger and freight station in its new location, looking grand on a new foundation and piece of ground that was meticulously built up over a year and a half. The building itself still looks rather ragged, but it’s finally possible to envision what it can become.

Three years ago the idea of moving the depot to keep it from being demolished seemed financially unrealistic, but here we are, on the verge of planning restorations. The most pressing need now is to replace the roof to make sure no additional deterioration occurs inside the building. I’ve written extensively as this project has progressed, so I won’t rehash the details too much, as you can find links to previous posts at the bottom of this page.

It is thanks to the donations of so many people that the project has gotten to this point, but we are just about out of money. I hope that reaching this milestone will inspire people to continue showing financial support for the project. I’ll have more on the finances and how you can help a little further down. Getting the depot back on the ground will enable us to pursue additional grant money, but much of that requires matching donations, so support from people who are excited about saving this depot is key.

The goal is for the building to eventually become a community meeting place that can be reserved for events and to house a museum on the history of the area and the role that railroads played in the establishment of Perry. The community was created around the tracks when the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad was created with the primary goal of moving coal from Indian Territory (today Oklahoma), through Arkansas, to the Mississippi River at Memphis.

This section of track was laid between 1898 and 1899, with Perry being significant as a midway point between Little Rock and Booneville. It was the era of steam locomotives, which would need to stop regularly for water. I’ve been told the city water pump next to where the depot is now was originally the location for a railroad water tank. Today the pump, which is part of a deep well, is used to refill firetrucks.

The CO&G was acquired in a hostile takeover by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad in 1904. It was a time of rapid expansion by the Rock Island, which created a vast network in the center of the United States. The City of Perry was incorporated in 1914, and we believe, based on insurance maps and other papers, that this depot was constructed in 1918.

40 years ago this month, the bankrupt Rock Island was shut down after years of its infrastructure declining during what was a struggling era for the railroads. In the 1980s the industry would be deregulated, but change didn’t come soon enough for the Rock Island. We hope that in addition to telling the story of the community that the depot will serve as a tribute to those who worked for the Rock Island.

Here’s the latest on what has happened over the last few months, along with extensive photos taken at each step of the project.

On Jan. 6, 2020, a crew from Combs Home Builders & House Movers returned to Perry to move the depot from a temporary location to an adjacent lot owned by the city. For 15 months it sat on steel beams behind property now owned by the shortline Little Rock & Western Railway as work to prepare the new location was completed. It took two days for workers to complete that part of the project.

With what seemed like relative ease, the house moving company pulled the depot out of a city access road, turned it around so the projecting telegrapher’s booth was again facing the tracks, and pushed it up to the elevated spot, getting it precisely above where a concrete footing had been poured in October. Hydraulic jacks were used to keep the depot elevated as wooden blocks were placed underneath the two steel beams.

As work continued outside, I climbed up to get a look at the inside of the depot. I hadn’t been able to walk through it since the building had been placed in the temporary location on Sept. 28, 2018. I’m happy to say that I didn’t see any new signs of damage or water leakage. Repairs last year were made to replace rotted floor joists and part of the floor that was caving in from the weight of a chimney, which was supported by a wall. The floor now seems solid throughout the building.

The house moving company left enough room underneath the depot for a foundation to be built. As the workers were packing up their gear, Buford Suffridge, president of the Perry County Historical & Genealogical Society, settled the bill, paying the second installment of the cost of moving the depot. It felt like such a momentous occasion that I asked him to pose for a photo with the receipt that said “paid in full.”

The $4,000 check was half of the overall $8,000, which Suffridge feels was a generous offer by Shane Cantrell, owner of Combs Home Builders & House Movers. Suffridge had reached out to other companies and received estimates that would have been too expensive for this project to proceed.

“I want to give him credit for giving us a good price on it. He was interested in the depot,” Suffridge said of Cantrell. “He was very cooperative and great, couldn’t have asked for a better experience. I was dreading it because I’d heard horror stories about moving houses.”

When Suffridge first called Cantrell, he immediately gave an estimate over the phone of $7,000 to $8,000. I think Cantrell has a soft spot in his heart for railroad preservation. His company also recently moved a Missouri Pacific steam locomotive in Paris, Ark.

Once again, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette sent a photographer for this latest step in the project, with a photo running the next day. The state newspaper had written a story that ran on August 27, 2018 after we reached a deal with the Little Rock & Western’s parent company to move the depot so that it wouldn’t be torn down to make way for an expanded locomotive servicing shop. A month later the New York Times included the Perry depot in a story published on Sept. 29, 2018 with the headline “Grimy, Glorious, Gone. The Divergent Paths of 7 Train Stations.” They even sent their own photographer to Perry to take the photos. The Petit Jean Country Headlight, which is the local newspaper, has also run my periodic updates.

The interest in the Perry depot by news outlets at the state, local and national level has been much appreciated. The Times article noted that Perry is a “no-stoplight town” and that the depot featured segregated waiting areas for white and black passengers.

By the middle of January, 730 cement cinder blocks for the foundation had been delivered. They were stacked on pallets when U.S. Rep. French Hill stopped by to see the depot on Jan. 20. He is part of the Historic Preservation Caucus, which includes 97 members of Congress, and Hill has been a key advocate for the project. We walked through the depot, which Hill had seen last summer when the area was flooded, but he had not been inside.

“What struck me is the nature of the history. This will be educational to our kids. It’ll be such a great resource for the Perry and Perryville communities to learn about railroading, transportation, the industrial growth of this part of Arkansas, but it’s a story of people,” Hill said.

He noted the graffiti left by many employees on the walls and ceiling in the freight room with names and dates, some going back as far as 1910. We think some of the dates might have been seniority dates (when employees were hired), while other dates might have been when they were inscribed. A fascinating project later would be to document each of the names and compare them to employee rosters. Perhaps we could involve history students from a university to lead the research.

The 2nd district congressman hopes the depot will also convey the different culture that existed in the U.S. during the first many decades of its existence. Up until World War II, railroads were the primary form of travel, with the passenger trains that rolled by the Perry depot running between Memphis, Tennessee and Amarillo, Texas. Connecting service there with the Southern Pacific Railroad could allow travel all the way west to Los Angeles.

Jim Crow laws of the era mandated that passengers be segregated, and like other depots in the south, the Perry depot had separate waiting areas for black and white passengers, divided by the office, which included the projecting telegrapher’s booth.

“It’s a story of those travelers, a story of engineers; it’s a story of discrimination because this depot has the old whites-only, or colored-only aspects. That’ll be something that we can show and learn from history,” Hill said. “It’s a story of westward expansion too and the importance of railroads.”

Three days earlier, the congressman had attended the annual Arkansas Preservation Awards, held Jan. 17 at the Governor’s Mansion in Little Rock. Gov. Asa Hutchinson noted there that over a quarter of the people who come to Arkansas for tourism visit historic sites and that historic preservation is important. Hill told me, “The whole thing can be connected to railroads. This will be a great site on that railroad history for those who come to visit and, as I say, for this community. It’ll be a great place to have a community center and a centerpiece for sharing history and community activities. It’ll be great for Perry.”

The white paint covering the exterior of the depot has long been flaking off, but the move shook much more loose, revealing previous layers of what appears to be red paint on the side walls and yellow paint near the roof. Hill looked closely at the colors as we discussed what the depot might have looked like in its earlier years.

Most photos I’ve seen of the depot were after 1960, when it was a solid white. Railroad historian Bill Pollard of Conway, who visited depots all along the Rock Island in Arkansas, says that in the early days, standard depot colors for the Rock Island were dark red for the entire structure, with a darker color for the trim around doors and windows. Photos from the 1950s showed many were a dark red below the belt, and a muted yellow/ tan above the top. Pollard shared a slide that he had bought of the Perry depot in 1952.

During the final years of the Rock Island, while the exterior of the depot remained white, the inside of the Perry depot was painted blue and white, using the color scheme from the company’s “The Rock” logo. That’s what the rooms still look like now, with blue carefully painted on the lower part of walls, door frames, shelves and trim. Once restored, we’ll have to determine what era color scheme to use.

In the first week of February, a block mason built the foundation with six layers of cinder blocks. The height was determined based on how high water had risen in that spot during record flooding last year. It will also provide a significant crawl space for ductwork and running wires or plumbing. The only part of the foundation not completed were holes on each end where the two long steel beams stuck out. The blocks, anchor bolts, vents and labor for the foundation ended up costing $1,552.50.

As I reported in January, Perry County covered the hefty expense of building up the ground higher than originally planned because of the flood. The in-kind donation of many layers of shale, heavy equipment and manpower totaled $17,415.52.

The depot and foundation were treated for termites on Feb. 13. The follow day, on Feb. 14, sill plates were positioned between the foundation and the floor of the depot – the final step needed before the house mover could return and actually place the depot on the foundation.

Finally, on Feb. 21, the house movers returned to use hydraulic jacks to lower the depot a few inches onto the new foundation. Then they removed the steel beams that the depot had been sitting on for the previous 15 months. After so much uncertainty at different times during the project, it felt great to have the depot back on the ground.

The next priority is replacing the roof to ensure that, after everything we’ve accomplished, water doesn’t get in and cause any further deterioration and water damage. We’ll also restore the full width of the roof, fixing part of the overhang that was trimmed off in the 1980s when the Little Rock & Western Railway built a locomotive servicing shop adjacent to the depot.

Unfortunately at this point we’re just about out of money. The nonprofit Perry County Historical & Genealogical Society has received nearly $7,700 in generous donations from individuals and the Arkansas Railroad Club through checks and an online Go Fund Me account. We also received great news last April when the city was awarded a nearly $10,000 grant from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s Division of Rural Services to create a community meeting place. The grant money allowed us to make repairs to the floor and complete the relocation of the depot.

Now we’re launching a second phase of our fundraising campaign to cover the cost of the roof. It’s expected to cost at least $3,500 for the tarpaper and shingles, while a quick estimate for restore the eave was about $1,000. Suffridge said we don’t have an overall estimate from the contractor yet because he needs to take a closer at the rafters and determine what needs to be replaced.

“We need money,” Suffridge said. “It’s been a long process, but that’s to be expected with this type of project. We’re satisfied with the headway we’re making so far.”

Preserve Arkansas has been providing guidance on how to proceed to make sure the steps taken in this project will make it eligible to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In 2018, the group listed the depot in its Most Endangered Places list because of the threat of imminent demolition. That helped generate attention and get us to where we are now.

If approved for the national designation, we will be able to apply for preservation grants, but those will require matching donations. If you can support the project by making a donation, please do!

In addition to accepting donations through our Go Fund Me account, checks can be mail to:

Perry County Historical Museum

P.O. Box 1128

Perryville, AR 72126