ATSF Lehigh, KS Depot

Lehigh, KS

	The Lehigh, KS depot is perhaps the only surviving example of a Santa Fe depot with what might be called the "1880" bay window design. Although the classic Santa Fe dormer-gable bay window style, with its three 12-pane windows, had already emerged by 1880 (see Alden, KS), built 1872), a number of depots built around 1880 used this four-window style instead. The bay had its own roof tucked under the eaves, with two 8-pane windows on the front and one 8-pane window on each angled face. Depots known to have used this style of bay include some on the McPherson District (Conway, Lehigh, and possibly Galva, KS), the 1880-built Alma branch (Alma, Eskridge, and Harveyville, KS), at least one depot on the Atchison District (Meriden, KS), and some one- and two-story depots on the main line in Colorado and New Mexico (the original depots at Starkville, CO, Raton and Lamy, NM). It is possible that Santa Fe had a set of standard depot plans that used this bay, as the Lehigh depot appears to have been nearly identical to Conway and Harveyville, KS in most dimensions. Like most Santa Fe depots built in Kansas in the 1880's, Lehigh was almost certainly built with board and batten siding; the narrow clapboard siding shown was likely the result of a post-1910 rebuild. Several other depots on the McPherson District showed evidence of a similar rebuild. An early photo of the Conway depot in Grant & Bohi's The Country Railroad Station in America shows it with board and batten siding, while a more modern image in McMillan's Wheat Lines and Super Freights shows clapboard. The depots at Galva and Little River also ended their careers with clapboard siding, though the rest of their architectural details suggest the board-and-batten era.


	Roof brackets were also evolving at the time Lehigh was built. Close examination shows that the brackets have a few more decorative touches than the usual "cobweb" style used on Santa Fe depots built before 1910.
Photos courtesy Job Luning Prak and Ken Talbert