Sulphur Springs Depot

Sulphur Springs Depot. Built: 1924 - Moved: 1978. , All Aboard! , Before railroads came to Pinellas, settlers traveled by foot, buggy, or horseback or by boat. The state's first railroad ended at Cedar Key, nearly 100 miles north of the Pinellas Peninsula. In the 1880s, Russian immigrant Peter Demens launched his Orange Belt Railway in Pinellas and Henry Plant brought his railroad to Tampa. Business ventures and tourism flourished after regular railroad service came to Pinellas. It improved efficiency in transporting crops and other goods to distant markets and bringing people here to enjoy the climate. , Next Stop: , Gulf Coast Junction , In 1908 the quickest wat to get from Tampa in upper Pinellas was to catch a steamship to St. Petersburg and ride the rails north to Tarpon Springs. In 1910 a new rail line connected Tampa and north Pinellas and workers built a small depot for Sulphur Springs known as Gulf Coast Junction. During the 1920s land boom, the Tampa and Gulf Coast Railroad, affectionately known as the 'Tug and Grunt,' built this new larger depot. , , Merging the Lines , 1889 , Orange Belt Railway suffered difficulties and Peter Demens left the area. , 1895 , Henry Plant took control of the Orange Belt Railway. , 1899 , Plant died and his line merged with the Atlantic Coast Line system. , 1928 , Seaboard Air Line Railroad acquired Tampa and Gulf Coast Railroad. , 1967 , Seaboard merged with Atlantic Coast Line Railroad to form Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. , Was it Faster to Walk? , Early trains on the Orange Belt Railway traveled as a crawl, rarely faster than 12 miles per hour to make sure they did not jump the tracks. People joked about it with a Dunedin resident saying they called the Orange Belt a tri-weekly train because "it goes on one week and tries to get back the next." , Catching the Final Train , After World War II, Americans purchased automobiles in record numbers. Highways connected distant cities and people bypassed the railroads. Passenger rail service came to an end in downtown St. Petersburg in June 1965. The glory days of Sulphur Springs and its railroad station disappeared by the 1970s and passenger rail service ended in Pinellas County in early 1984. , Waiting for Change , depot architecture has a distinctive look across the country. While many large cities had grand terminals, this wood frame depot resembles many rural train stations in the South that provided a covered shelter for passengers, their luggage and railroad offices. "Jim Crow" laws of the day required separate facilities for 'white and colored' passengers. Notice the two waiting rooms inside the building; The bathroom is in the 'white only' waiting room. , Tidbits from Time , Follow the Trail of the Rails , The Fred E. Marquis Pinellas Trail, less than a mile from Heritage Village, following much of the original path of the Orange Belt Railway.