Train Depot

The St. Louis & San Francisco Railroad was established in 1881, when Lowell was still a village. By 1889, greens, fruits, poultry, timber, and railroad ties were being shipped extensively from the depot, and in 1892-93 Lowell shipped more raspberries than any line from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Monett, Missouri. For Lowell teenagers, the depot was a favorite place to watch trains pass and see who arrived. For years, Toby Tucker served as the mail messenger, meeting the train night and morning; when a stop was needed, he signaled with a waving kerosene lantern, and otherwise a mail crane held the pouch beside the track for the moving train to snag while heavy incoming mail pouches were kicked or tossed off for him to carry to the Post Office. In the 1940's, railroad officials placed the depot building on a railcar and moved it to another location, possibly in Oklahoma.

Lowell, Arkansas · United States