E J & E Depot No. 4

Built sometime between 1884 and 1887 and in place by 1887, E J and E Depot No. 4 was originally a wood-framed combination freight and passenger station on the south side of the railroad tracks at Center Street, about 1.25 miles east of its present location. It first served the main line of the Joliet, Aurora and Northern Railway, whose organizers met in Joliet, Illinois, on March 22, 1884, to create a company intended to run from the Indiana state line through Joliet and Aurora to the Mississippi River opposite Dubuque, Iowa, though only the section between Joliet and Aurora was built, with morning and evening passenger service six days a week. In March 1887 the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway Company of Illinois was created and began operation a month later, extending westward from the Illinois-Indiana state line toward Elgin by using the completed J A and N section. By 1893 this 130-mile arc between Waukegan and Porter, Indiana, through Elgin and Joliet, was known as the Chicago Outer Belt Line. Streetcar lines reduced the need for local railroad passenger trains, and around 1907 passenger trains were discontinued though passenger service continued; by the 1930s the line was commonly called The J. Active operation of Plainfield Depot No. 4 ended in 1978. Preservation efforts began in 1996, and in 1999 the depot was moved to its present site along a later spur line and restored. Added to the site in 2009 were a 1956 caboose, a 1978 freight car built especially to carry large rolls of newsprint, and a 1952 Fairmont Motor Car originally sold in June 1952 to the New York Central Railroad for $513, together forming a historic setting for the last wood-framed E J and E depot remaining along an active rail line.

Plainfield, Illinois · United States