What Is the Atchison Santa Fe Depot?
This stone freight house is the last surviving building associated with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway in the city of its origin!
What Makes It Historical?
In this day and age, the AT&SF Railway is best remembered from the Oscar-winning 1946 song by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer, but it was a major player in the railroad industry from 1859 until 1951! The line got its start with a partnership between Topeka founder, Cyrus Holliday, and Atchison legislator, Luther Challiss, with the idea of making Atchison its eastern terminus. After all, the town was 12 miles closer to Denver than any other river town at the time and had one of the best steamboat landings on the Missouri River!
It ticked off a bunch of investors when the first rails went down in Topeka in 1868 and started moving west, leaving Atchison behind! They had to argue again that they were the best way to connect western lines to eastern ones, so the railway did finally build the extra 51 miles of track to connect Topeka and Atchison. Then, Atchison became a major grain distribution and manufacturing center with access to four railroads leading east, all the way into the early 1870s!
However, before the line reached Santa Fe in 1880, the same year this freight depot and nearby passenger station were completed, Atchison was already in peril! Nearby Kansas City had built a railroad bridge across the Missouri in 1869, followed by St. Joseph, then Leavenworth. Atchison’s resistance to building a bridge while relying on toll-funded steamboats, spelled its doom as a railroad terminus! That this freight depot survived the Railway’s decline owes to its stone construction. Because most railroad support structures were build from flimsy wood, this is one of the very few still surviving from that time period!
How Can I #HelpTheHelpers?
- Become a member of the Atchison County Historical Society!
- Be a responsible visitor! Please respect the signs and pathways, and treat all structures and artifacts with respect. They’ve endured a lot to survive into the present. They’ll need our help to make it into the future!
How Do I Get There?
200 S 10th St
Atchison, KS 66002
(Take Me There!)
When Should I Visit?
Between April and November, the museum is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 AM until 5:00 PM, Saturdays from 10:00 AM until 4:00 PM, and Sundays from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM! The rest of the year, it closes at 3:00 PM on Saturdays and all day Sunday!
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