Seaboard Coast Line Railroad station (St. Petersburg, Florida)

The station building in 2011.

Seaboard Coast Line Railroad station (also referred to as the "Historic Seaboard Train Station") is a former freight railway station in St. Petersburg, Florida, which has been designated by the city of St. Petersburg as a local landmark.[1][2] The structure is located at 420 22nd Street South.

History

The station was constructed in 1926 by the Tampa and Gulf Coast Railroad Company, the second railway line to enter St. Petersburg. The office building and warehouse are built of brick in masonry vernacular style and are the city's only substantially unaltered example of railroad architecture.[3] The line and building came to be owned by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad (SAL), and the building continued in use as a freight depot for that company until 1967.[4] In that year, SAL merged with Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL), forming the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad and the depot was closed.

Seaboard Confusion

In the years since, the building has come to be referred to as the "Seaboard Coast Line Railroad station" despite the fact that it never operated as such, and ignoring the existence of another area structure which did.

The 1926 Seaboard Train Station should not be confused with the three other St. Petersburg depots which operated under one of the Seaboard brands. Seaboard Air Line passenger service operated out of two stations, the first of which was built in 1915.[5] A replacement SAL Passenger Station was built in 1959 at 34th Street South and Fairfield Avenue South. Its railroad career ended after less than a decade of service as it too was closed following the 1967 merger of SAL and ACL. Its ACL counterpart had just been built in 1963, so it was at that station where Seaboard Coast Line consolidated their passenger operations.[6] The former St. Petersburg ACL Station is the only one in the city that operated as an actual Seaboard Coast Line station, albeit only for a few years, as it would begin service under Amtrak in 1971.

Post-railroad Use

Following its closure by the railroad, the 1926 station came into use by a variety of different businesses. The year 2000 saw the start of a two-year renovation of the building, at a cost of over $1 million. Today, it is occupied by the St. Petersburg Clay Company, which rents studio space to ceramics artists and operates a sales gallery.[7] [8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ City of St. Petersburg - Local Historic Landmarks. Seaboard Coastline Railroad Station. 420 Twenty-Second Street South. Designated January 1993, HPC #92-03
  2. ↑ The Florida Humanities Council Discover Black Florida Website - Seaboard Coastline Railroad Station/St. Petersburg Clay Company
  3. ↑ http://www.stpete.org/historic_preservation/historic_landmarks/local_landmarks/docs/Seaboard_Coast_Line_RR.pdf
  4. ↑ http://www.stpete.org/stpete/2009_Combined_Midtown_Mainstreets_Tour1.pdf
  5. ↑ Mulligan, M.: "Railroad Depots of Central Florida", page 87. Arcadia Publishing, 2008.
  6. ↑ Yogman, Ron (17 February 1972), "Cox Lumber Buys Seaboard Station", The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg).
  7. ↑ St. Petersburg Clay Company
  8. ↑ St. Petersburg Shines - "St. Petersburg Shines Update" November 28, 2007 - St. Pete Clay Company Holiday Sale December 1 & 2

27°46′01″N 082°39′46″W / 27.76694°N 82.66278°W / 27.76694; -82.66278

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