We’re not in Kansas anymore… the American station inspired by Shakespeare’s home
FOR sale: one historic train depot located in the US and erected in 1929 to look like ‘Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-upon-Avon’.
This postcard, pictured, put together as sales material for the Old Santa Fe Depot in Newton, Kansas, landed on the Herald’s doormat last week.
It got us interested. Shakespeare has inspired a lot of creativity around the world, but there can’t be many railway stations based on the Birthplace in Henley Street.
But was this one? Our first thoughts were: “Does it really look like the Birthplace? There’s some lovely gables… and the Stratford property has those.”
Perhaps the photos on the marketing material don’t do it justice. To the internet. Google maps gives a 360 of the building and there are some historic influences, we think, and a bit of mock Tudor.
What is evident is that the depot is charming in its own right, and much better on the eye than many of the soulless, modern stations built nowadays in our own country.
It’s also on America’s state register of historic places, is still used by Amtrak, the national passenger railroad company of the United States, and is a bit of a landmark in Newton.
An article by Chad Frey in the Newton Kansan reveals more about the Old Santa Fe Depot. It was constructed in 1929-30 and was designed by EH Harrison in the Tudor Revival style.
The newspaper adds: “Local lore states it was modelled after Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-on-Avon. The two-storey train station was constructed with a slate roof and patches of half-timbering. The interior has medieval touches of heavy beamed ceilings and half-timbered walls.”
The town is looking for someone with vision to take on the building, but the asking price has not being revealed, should you find yourself interested in switching State-side.
Stan Brodhagen, the agent selling the building, told the Newton Kansan: “We generally do not disclose what the price is, just out there to the public, but it is a lesser price that what people wanted before. We think it is within reason. … We will put it out there on the market and the market will tell us what it is worth.”
The station is still very much in use – it’s a stop on the Southwest Chief, a service which runs daily between Chicago and Los Angeles. That’s a long way – about 1,700 miles and 40-odd hours onboard. We can’t seem to get a direct service between Stratford and London – that’s a journey of about 80 miles and seems to take about the same as getting between Chicago and LA.
“I worked a long time to try and get this for sale,” Mr Brodhagen concluded. “We need citizens’ help. We need them to talk about this.”
We hope Newton finds a fitting purpose for their Shakespeare-inspired building.
