This is the Burlington Northern Depot in Casper Wyoming. It was built in 1916, which would place this building solidly in the era of the petroleum and livestock fueled economic boom that happened in Casper during World War One.
The following photographs were taken in June 2015 from a Ford Trimotor airplane.
Love those pix from the Tri-Motor!! Tri-motor was a GREAT plane; I had a chance to fly in one
ReplyDeleteonce. Noisy!! but a great ride; I'd love to do it again!!
BN was A GREAT RAILROAD too bad the got "saddled" with the SF!!
I would like to know if you have more information about this location. My grandfather, Patrick Henry Brennan was road master and know he was based in Casper for quite some time. The family history has dwindled as the years have gone by. I would love to gather as much as I can for my sons....
ReplyDeleteStephanie, I'm not sure what all you'd like to know, but as noted the station was built in 1916. During that period the BN was upgrading a lot of railroad stations in the state and removing the older wooden structures with much more permanent brick ones. At least based on my observation of their period stations they were divided between smaller brick structures for smaller stations, and larger ones like this for larger stations. This station is nearly identical to the one in Sheridan Wyoming, for example.
DeleteThe structure is coincident with a major local boom in the oil and gas industry that occurred during this period. I've written about that here: https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2017/03/1917-year-that-made-casper-what-it-is.html
Starting in 1914 the demand for oil enormously increased due to WWI and Casper was the site of more than one refinery. As the war heated up, demand for oil was sufficient such that one of the refineries was enormously increased in size and capacity and, at the same time, a gigantic demand developed for livestock of all types. Casper was served by two railroads at the time and both served Arminto Wyoming, which is discussed elsewhere on this site, which was the largest sheep shipping location on earth.
This continued to be the case throughout World War Two and into the 1950s, and of course during the same period most long distance transportation was undertaken by rail. By the 1960s, however, passenger rail transportation had dropped off. Following the Transportation Act of 1958, the Post Office quit shipping most mail by rail and that also ceased. Scheduled daily domestic rail transportation therefore dropped off. As late as the 1980s Casper still was served by two railroads but somewhere in that timeframe the other one quit operating in Wyoming leaving only the BN.
Additionally, after passenger transportation ceased the town came to be served by bus transportation and for a long time Greyhound and perhaps some other lines used the old railroad depot as a terminal, although they no longer do. It remains in use, of course, as the BN's station, but all the rail traffic in the yard is freight, and has been for decades.
Hope that was of some interest.
Just doing a quick bit of research, I'm guessing that your grandfather was the the railroad master who retired in 1941 and was the railroad master in Casper at that time. If that's correct, he would have died in 1958, which is the same year my mother's father died, fwiw.
DeleteAnyhow, that would have made him the railroad master just prior to World War Two. During that period of time the BN had a very active passenger service and carried mail to Casper at least daily from the a larger post office in Denver. The mail was delivered at night and then sorted at the post office, which at that time was at the Federal District Courthouse. A view of that courthouse is here: https://courthousersofthewest.blogspot.com/2011/02/ewing-t-kerr-federal-courthouse-casper.html
In addition to passenger service, the BN had an active oil transportation business at the time through this railyard and it still does, although not from multiple refineries as was then the case. In the 1930s and 1940s Casper had three extremely active refineries, the largest of which was the gigantic Standard Oil Refinery which closed in the 1980s. It also had a Texaco Refinery and what is now the only surviving refinery, the Sinclair Refinery, which was probably the Mobile Refinery at the time.
The BN also served a large regional cattle and sheep industry in that period as cattle and sheep were shipped by rail, not by truck as they now are. Adding to that, Casper had a packing house that operated in what is now part of Evansville. A photo of the old packing plant, including the rail line, can be seen here: https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-pandemic-and-food-part-three-good.html
The packing plant was about to change hands at the this time, and may have already done so, which I'm noting as its shipping was sufficiently large such that the packing plant had refrigerator cars named for it by the railroad, which was a practice that railroads engaged in at the time for shippers of sufficient volume. An example of the car can be seen here: https://lexanteinternet.blogspot.com/2011/10/holscher-packing-company-refrigerator.html?spref=bl