Community effort to preserve Steilacoom Depot gaining steam
Oct 28, 2022, 9:26 AM | Updated: 9:56 am
In the Pierce County community of Steilacoom, an effort to preserve the historic railroad depot there is once again gaining steam.
Steilacoom is the oldest incorporated town in the Evergreen State. The name is an anglicization of an Indigenous word associated with a village there and was first recorded as “Chil-a-coom” by Hudson’s Bay Company as early as 1824. Other spellings, writes Robert Hitchman in his 1985 book Place Names of Washington, include Chel-a-kum, Tail-a-coom, Skil-a-coom, and several others. The meaning, writes Hitchman, was “flowers here.”
“STIL-uh-kuhm” has been the accepted way to say “Steilacoom” for decades, according to Hugh Rundell’s guide to pronouncing place names published by WSU in the 1960s. In July 2017, when a train derailed at Steilacoom, national news anchor Richard Cantu of ABC apparently did not have that guide handy for his top-of-the-hour newscast.
“An unspecified number of minor injuries reported after four cars of an Amtrak train derailed near water at . . . STEYE-luh-koom, Washington,” Cantu said. You can hear a slight pause of uncertainty before Cantu reaches “Steilacoom” in his script, and it’s hard to fault the guy for going phonetic on a somewhat obscure place name involved in breaking news.
And it’s along those same tracks “near water” where the 1914 Steilacoom Depot has stood for more than 100 years. According to the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, the structure is made of stucco and brick and was designed by a “noted local architect” named Arthur Potter Merrill.
The Steilacoom Depot was originally built by the Northern Pacific. It served passengers until sometime in the 1960s and then was a freight-only depot until 1972. What was then called Burlington Northern used it for storage for several years. Though the depot has been empty and boarded up for a long time, recent photos show that it retains much of its original interior details. BNSF Railway no longer needs the depot and would like it to be removed from their right-of-way.
Longtime BNSF regional director of public affairs, Gus Melonas retired recently, but he continues to serve as a consultant to the railroad. Melonas loves the railroad history the depot represents, but he says the Steilacoom Depot is too close to the tracks.
“We don’t want it next to the mainline right there,” Melonas told KIRO Newsradio’s All Over The Map on Thursday. “That’s a high-speed, 60-plus trains, 24 hours a day” stretch of tracks, he continued, “and we do not want the public near that structure. We don’t want anybody to get hurt.”
Melonas – whose own 40-plus year career and multi-generation connection to what’s now BNSF give him a unique perspective on Northwest railroad history – is a proponent of community-based efforts to preserve depots and vintage railroad equipment. He points to King Street Station in Seattle, and the recently-moved depot in Cheney, Wash., as examples of successful preservation projects.
“Depots are disappearing, they’re obsolete, they’re not needed anymore [and] they’re, in some cases, an eyesore,” Melonas said. “But then, on the flip side, they’re absolutely beautiful. And when they’re preserved right, they’re awesome, and they attract people from all over the world.”
It’s clear Melonas would like to see something good happen in Steilacoom, too.
“We’d love to see it survive, but it has to be moved off the property,” Melonas said. “And we’d like to see a plan developed with the city sooner rather than later.”
Melonas says BNSF has been ready to donate the building for several years.
Leading the grassroots effort to preserve the Steilacoom Depot is the non-profit Steilacoom Historical Museum. Marianne Bull is curator for the popular organization, and also serves as chair of the Apple Squeeze, which celebrated its post-pandemic return earlier this month.
Bull told KIRO Newsradio that in early 2020 – right before the pandemic – the museum commissioned a study to estimate the cost of moving the depot off of BNSF property and onto adjacent city property. The least expensive option (moving the depot the shortest distance) came in at around $1.2 million. A significant part of the expense is the work required to encapsulate the brick and stucco in plywood – to stabilize the masonry – which is essential (and expensive) even if the depot is moved only a short distance.
Since 2020, there are new leaders at City Hall in Steilacoom. Complicating the project somewhat, Bull says, is the fact that the city property nearest the depot is used for parking lots that generate significant revenue for Steilacoom’s coffers. Moving the depot could affect that revenue, so the museum is just now re-starting the process to generate support for the project and to come up with a plan that city leaders – as well as Gus Melonas and BNSF – can all get behind.
“There’s a lot of people who want to save the depot,” Bull said. “But we need to convince the administration that it’s a fair trade-off to the value of Steilacoom to have it restored and in a new reusable position.”
A specific use for the depot has not yet been identified, but Bull says it’s a natural addition for something related to heritage tourism, perhaps a visitor center or other facility tied into the new Maritime Washington Heritage Area.
“We never have come up with exactly the right use,” Bull said. “The architects advised us that it would probably be a good idea to just move forward, and then the context will reveal itself.”
Moving forward is probably a good idea for other reasons, too.
Gus Melonas of BNSF says several of the railroad’s old depots have been razed over the years, and there aren’t too many left in the Northwest.
“They’re few and far between,” Melonas said. “We’d like to see [Steilacoom Depot] preserved. We will hold off [on other options] right now, but we would love to have a plan developed sooner rather than later because they’re not going to last forever.”
“Steilacoom [Depot] is the cat with nine lives and still hanging in there, surviving,” Melonas said. “And we hope that the city comes up with a plan soon.”
You can hear Feliks every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien, read more from him here, and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea, please email Feliks here.
