BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – A group has formed to try to save a 133-year-old former Southern Pacific railroad station in Bakersfield, and is asking the public’s help in convincing the city to extend a lease on the structure while it mounts its preservation efforts.
The Bakersfield Californian reports the Save the Sumner Station Working Group is asking the public to convince members of the city council to extend a current one-year “maintenance lease” on the building, owned by Union Pacific, which helped prevent demolition of the structure last year.
The lease, approved last May [see “Digest: Beech Grove fire intentionally set …,” Trains News Wire, May 7, 2021], allowed the city to do some work to maintain the structure and to install an alarm system to secure the building.
But improvements needed immediately could cost more than $400,000, and a full renovation could cost $5 million to $10 million.
Jeff Johnson, a volunteer with the preservation group, believes federal money might be available for the project, and hopes Union Pacific might be convinced to do more.
“The nostalgic value of that building is enormous,” Johnson told the newspaper. “We also believe the rehabilitation of the depot would help with the economic development of the east Bakersfield area.”
As part of the effort, a local architectural firm is helping develop a 3-D model of the building as it would look if the current plaster façade is stripped from the original brick facing. An animation of what the building would look like will be presented to city officials as part of effort to save the structure.
I hope the city and historical groups do get with it and save this depot. Tulare was going to save its passenger depot but hesitated and “somebody” went down one night and set it on fire. Now a Chevron gas station and “Jack’s Git n’ Go” sits on the spot. Ugly. Could have had an attractive, distinguished looking, historic, park-like area downtown. Nope.
Federal money…this is what some of the state surplus should be used for.
I am unaware of any effort to save Memphis Union Station with Beaux-Arts architecture before its demolition in 1969. I was an unassuming minor then.
Southern Railway sold the 1912 marbled station to the United States Post Office for $1.00 after the last passenger train departed.