MStP&SSM (Soo Line) Union Station

602 West Superior Street | Architects: Bell, Tyrie & Chapmen, Architects | Built: 1910 | Lost: 1972

The Wisconsin Central Railroad began planning its Duluth passenger terminal and yard as early as 1906, eventually deciding to build below Superior Street between Sixth and Eighth Avenues West in the heart of Duluth’s Bowery. Most of the existing structures were one- or two-stories tall, some faced in brick-and-brownstone, but most were wood-frame structures. They included, the Duluth News-Tribune reported, eight lodging houses [residential hotels and boarding houses], six saloons, six stores, three pawn shops, two restaurants, and two barbershops. The exception was the Metropolitan Opera House, built just four years earlier at 616 West Michigan Street and designed by noted Duluth architect John J. Wangenstein. Despite a variety of quality acts, the Metropolitan’s location doomed its success. The facility failed to attract well-healed theatre patrons, and neighborhood residents could not afford admission. By 1907 it had ceased to book legitimate theatre and had become a burlesque house. It was demolished in December 1907—the last of the buildings removed for the Soo terminal’s construction.

Contractors began grading the site as soon as the opera house remains were swept way. In June 1908 work began on giant retaining walls that dropped alongside Superior Street between the depot and tunnel—but plans for the station didn’t arrive until July 13, 1909. On August 8 newspapers announced that George Lounsberry had won the bid to build the station—one of several structures the popular contractor’s crews would build for the Soo in Duluth. Lounsberry declared his team would have the building operational in two months and completed in four. Construction began by mid-August, but Lounsberry’s self-imposed deadlines came and went. It mattered little: the station couldn’t operate until the tunnel allowing trains to access it was finished and rail lines reached the terminal. In fact, construction would take more than a year; delays were blamed on changes to the architect’s plans.

When finished on October 1, 1910, the 86-by-115-foot building stood one-and-a-half stories tall along Superior Street and dropped two stories to the train yards below. Designed by Charles E. Bell, William M. Tyrie, and Cecil B. Chapman, the Classical Revival building was faced in orange-red brick and trimmed with terra-cotta. Design elements included Doric columns along the Superior Street entrance portico, pedimental window hoods buttressed by corbels, and modillions and dentils running beneath an ornate cornice outfitted with stone balustrades. The Duluth News Tribune noted that “when lighted at night, it is magnificent.” The newspaper also described its interior:

The walls are finished in imitation Caen stone and are cream colored. The floors are of concrete, with marble borders, the latter being the production of four countries—Italy, Belgium (black), Greece and the United States (Tennessee). Four immense columns are finished in scagiola, an Italian composition, and have the appearance of genuine marble. The roof is supported by an elliptic arch, in the borders of which are four oil paintings, representing Soo line equipment and scenes along the line of that road. Besides a main waiting room there is a private room for ladies and a smoking room for the men….

Ascending a flight of stairs is a handsome balcony for the use of the public…from there is obtained an excellent view of the bay and harbor. At the other end is another balcony, opening to private offices.
The seats of the waiting room are of oak, in mission finish. The window frames are of copper, and the doors are finished in the same material.

On the lower floor, entering from the train sheds or the Michigan Street side, is the waiting room for second-class passengers, in the rear end of which is a portion assigned to immigrant passengers, while not so elegantly cared for, are made as fully comfortable as are the first class.

The main floor also included a “roomy and well-appointed ticket office half way down the Sixth Avenue side” as well as offices for its passenger and freight departments, telephone booths for the public, a telegraph office, and a news stand. George Sherwood took charge as the depot’s general ticket agent and oversaw the work of district passenger agent J. P. Gehrey, ticket agent C. E. Cole, traveling passenger agent H. T. Duffy, and general baggage agent D. R. Shong.

The following year the Soo’s fellow Canadian Pacific subsidiary the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic moved out of the Duluth Union Depot and into the Soo facility, after which the new building became known as the Soo Line Union Station. Workmen applied large, cast metal placards to columns on both sides of the entrance doors stating the new name to the building’s exterior. That April the railroad announced it would install “two mammoth electric signs” atop the depot. One would be installed on the Michigan Street side and face the bay while the other faced west to greet trains emerging from the Soo tunnel. The identical signs were simply a neon depiction of the Soo’s “dollar sign” monogram. Once lit, they became landmarks of the district.
By the mid 1940s the original ticket office—an enclosed space with ticket windows—had been remodeled into an open-counter plan with semi-transparent partitions separating ticket agent stations. At the time the desk was manned by general ticket agent Algot E. Sword, first trick operator Ben Paul, and second trick operator Grover Hutchinson.

After passenger service ended in 1965, urban renewal redevelopment plans called for the building to be renovated as the St. Louis County Heritage and Arts Center. Unfortunately, years of neglect resulted in a completely flooded basement, which undermined the building’s structural integrity. Instead, the county purchased the 1892 Duluth Union Depot for the heritage and arts center. The Soo Line Union Station was demolished beginning August 11, 1972. Gateway Towers, an apartment complex for seniors, now stands over the depot’s former site.