Groundsite Image Gallery
Union Pacific Railroad Depot
Artist: Hughes, Langston
Height: 0.000"
Width: 0.000"
*Union Pacific Railroad Depot, now the Lawrence Information Visitor Center, 402 N. Second St. (two blocks north of the Massachusetts St. bridge over the Kansas River). (1889).
This depot, built in 1889, was the place where soldiers departed during World War I and World War II. Langston Hughes and his family would have seen this building in their daily lives and may have used this depot for trips to Topeka and Kansas City. Freight trains still roll through the station but do not stop here.
Today the restored building serves the Lawrence area as an information center, where historic pamphlets and walking tour information are available. When the Union Pacific closed the station in 1984, the company planned to demolish it. Community donations and grants were used to renovate the building. It re-opened in 1996. The Lawrence Preservation Alliance and other community initiatives preserve some of Langston Hughes’s Lawrence to this day.