In 1870 the Port Huron and Lake Michigan Railroad Company, later the Grand Trunk Railroad, opened a rail line and depot in Capac, and Judge Dewitt C. Walker later recalled that the first locomotive whistle heralded prosperity for the village. Capac was incorporated in 1873, and by 1880 had a population of 544 people. Timber, barrel staves, and grain were shipped by rail. The first depot, built north of the tracks, burned in 1880, and a second brick depot was built south of the tracks. That depot was declared unsafe and replaced by a third depot north of the tracks in the 1890s. After the third depot was destroyed by fire on January 9, 1914, the Grand Trunk Railroad Company built a wood-frame station north of the tracks just south of Railroad Street. Opened on October 17, 1914, it provided passenger and freight service, and its telegraph office brought the latest news to the village. The depot closed on October 8, 1973. In 1987 the Capac Community Historical Society bought it for one dollar on condition that the building be relocated. On October 21, 1988, the society moved the depot in two parts to this site, about three-fourths of a mile northeast of its original location, began rehabilitating it for reuse as a museum, and it reopened as the Capac Community Historical Museum in 1994.