Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Center Point Depot

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, September 18, 2025

1. Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Center Point Depot Marker

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From the National Register Nomination prepared by Leah D. Rogers, 1/11/2018:
The Center Point depot is distinguished by a two-story, front-gabled substation room that occupies the south end of the building. The ticket office/waiting room was in the center section of the one-story, hip-roofed section on the north side of the substation. The freight warehouse occupied the north end of the one-story, hip-roofed section. The walls are built of tile blocks that are stuccoed on the exterior

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, September 18, 2025

2. Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Center Point Depot Marker

The marker is on the right side of the southwest corner station entrance. Today this building is home to the Center Point Historical Depot Museum.

and painted white. The water table level of the exterior wall is faced with rough-faced, dark red vitrified bricks, with the brick section capped with a concrete course and having a concrete footer to shed water away from the concrete foundation. There is no basement in this building but there is a crawlspace under all but the substation portion of the building. There are several windows with window wells for the crawlspace. The architectural style of the Center Point Depot reflects influence from the Mission style and the Prairie/Craftsman styles of architecture, all popular in the early 20th century. Most of the WCF&N depots built around the same time were more influenced by the Prairie/Craftsman styles, with the Center Point Depot being notable for its Mission influence. This is seen in the raised shaped parapets, the round-arched windows, and the stuccoed exterior.

The depot in Center Point is one of only a few that still convey their historical association with the WCF&N, which was one of Iowa’s major interurban lines in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern (WCF&N) interurban rail line

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, September 18, 2025

3. Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Center Point Depot

Looking southeast from Washington Street.

(aka, the “Cedar Valley Road”) was an electric rail line that provided passenger and freight service between Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Cedar Falls, and Waverly, Iowa. When completed, this line was considered among the better built interurban lines in the state and was called “a steam railroad with a trolley wire over it” because of the substantial nature of its construction. However, the construction of the interstate highway system in the mid-1950s quickly replaced the need for interurban rail transport, with Iowa’s cities now connected by an improved interstate and state highway system. Passenger service on the WCF&N was discontinued on February 20, 1956, in the wake of a major fire at the roundhouse in Waterloo two years prior. Freight service continued along the WCF&N, but by the mid-1950s, the freight tonnage transported along this line was in sharp decline.

The WCF&N interurban line was reorganized as the Waterloo Railway in 1958 by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific and the Illinois Central railroads. The Waterloo line was fully integrated into the Illinois Central system in 1970 and continued to haul freight until the line was

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, September 18, 2025

4. Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Center Point Depot

Looking southwest from Washington Street.

abandoned in 1973 and the tracks subsequently removed. The abandoned rail line was later developed into the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, which stretches from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo and is also part of the American Discovery Trail System.

Excerpt:  The Mission Revival building was constructed in 1914 by the Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Railway, an interurban line that ran between the Waterloo – Cedar Falls area and Cedar Rapids. Passenger service ended here in 1956, and rail freight was discontinued in 1973. The station sat empty until it was renovated beginning in 1983. Other renovation projects were carried out 1998 to 1999 and 2013. The building was acquired by the Linn County Conservation Board in the early 1980s and turned into a museum and rest stop along the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, which follows the former rail bed. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

Photographed by Cosmos Mariner, September 18, 2025

5. Waterloo, Cedar Falls and Northern Center Point Depot (southeast elevation)

From the National Register Nomination:  The façade of the building fronts the railway grade to the east and was the formal front of the building. The two-story section façade features a raised gabled parapet capped with concrete coping that peaks at the top and flares at each end. The attic-level of the gable end features a centered round-arched, 6/6 sash window with dark red brick round-arched surround featuring a quoined effect. In-between the attic level and the ground level of this section is an inset concrete plaque embossed with “Cedar Valley Road” and featuring the left-angled parallelogram logo of the interurban line. On the ground floor of the two-story façade is a centered double-wide, wood-paneled utility door with three rows of two-pane windows on each door. This utility door opens into the interior and provided entry into the substation for workers and was not for public access. The utility door is flanked by two single rectangular windows that have 6/6 sash windows that are replacement windows but resemble the original windows.

The Center Point substation originally housed two 650-volt, 500kv, 500-rpm Allis-Chalmer’s rotary converters, which were mounted on two wooden blocks. The main powerhouse was in western Waterloo and generated the electrical power which was transmitted over the high-tension lines to the various interurban stations. An alternating current (AC) was produced by the powerhouse. The AC current was converted to direct current (DC) at each of the substations along the route.