Kansas has thirty-five depots listed on the state and national historic preservation registers. Here are some of the more noteworthy transformations.
In Atchison, the 1880s-era Santa Fe Depot houses the Atchison County Historical Society Museum and its extensive holdings of Amelia Earhart memorabilia.
Abilene has its Convention and Visitors Bureau as well as the Area Chamber of Commerce in the town’s Union Pacific Depot – designed by famed architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood, best known for his national park lodges.
Leavenworth’s Depot is a family-owned restaurant called The Depot.
Chanute’s Santa Fe Depot was turned into the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum and the Chanute Public Library.
The historic Santa Fe Depot & Harvey Hotel in Dodge City – the largest depot in Kansas – is now a dinner theater company.
Strong City’s ATSF Depot has been repurposed into its City Hall.
The Bartlett Arboretum in Belle Plaine moved the Oxford Depot to its current location in 2013.
The Great Overland Station in Topeka, another Underwood structure, is one of the best-renovated train depots in Kansas and houses the Kansas Hall of Fame.
Kingman’s Santa Fe Depot is now a railroad museum.
The Marysville Union Pacific Depot – the only other station in Kansas that Underwood designed for the railroad – is being developed into a community center and houses railroad artifacts.
In some cases, new structures are being built.
In 2016, the 37 residents of Beaumont in Butler County opened the Beaumont Depot Community Center, a new structure built for $150,000. It was patterned to look like the town’s original late 19th-century depot.
It serves as a community center for Beaumont’s Glencoe Township, and also Hickory, Union Center and Otter townships.
Still standing is the Frisco railroad water tower, considered to be one of the last surviving wooden water towers in the nation. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
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