Union Station Timeline

Union Depot opened on June 1, 1881, in the High Victorian Eclectic style at a cost of $525,000. On November 18, 1883, the railroads instituted a time zone system specifically to keep trains on time at Union Depot and across the country. In 1892, the depot expanded with one-story wings added on each side. In 1894, an electrical short in a chandelier caused a fire that destroyed the tower, main wing, and roof, and in 1895 the depot and tower were rebuilt and expanded in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. A Welcome Arch was dedicated in 1906, renamed the “Mizpah Arch” in 1908, and described as Hebrew for “May God be with you until we meet again”; it was seventy tons of steel, sixty-five feet tall, eighty-six feet wide, and lit by 1,294 light bulbs. Cherry Creek flooded Union Depot in 1912, and in 1914 the central section was enlarged in Renaissance Revival Beaux Arts style and renamed Union Station. A new dining room was built in 1920, and in 1923 a north tunnel and wing extension were built for a mail express facility. In 1931, the “Mitzpah Arch” was deemed a traffic hazard, removed, and sold for scrap. In 1933, the failure of Castlewood Canyon Dam on Cherry Creek flooded Union Station. A model railroad club began building a display in the station basement in 1935, and ski train service from Denver to Winter Park began in 1940. At the height of World War II, eighty passenger trains came through Union Station each day in 1945. The dining room was remodeled into the Continental Room and Caboose Lounge in 1950, and the iconic red neon “Union Station Travel by Train” signs were installed in 1953. In 1958, Stapleton Air Field surpassed Union Station for annual travelers, and a U.S. Postal Service Terminal Annex was constructed. In 1967, an average of twenty-three passenger trains came through Union Station every day. Amtrak took over passenger service operations there in 1971, and the station was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. From 1982 to 1986, tracks 6 through 12 were removed behind the station. In 1987, the building’s north and south end wings were removed, sparking public outcry, and in 1988 plans to demolish Union Station and move it near the stockyards were abandoned. The Denver Post Cheyenne Frontier Days Train service was revived in 1992, and Orient Express luxury excursion service operated out of the station from 1995 to 2000. RTD bought Union Station in 2001 with help from the City and County of Denver, the Colorado Department of Transportation, and the Denver Regional Council of Governments. In 2004, voters approved funding for RTD’s FasTracks rail network, and Union Station was named a landmark historic district by the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission. The last Ski Train departed from Union Station in 2009, construction of a new commuter rail station started in 2010, the Denver Union Station Light Rail Plaza opened in 2012, and the revitalized Union Station, including a new bus concourse and the Crawford Hotel, opened in 2014.

Denver, Colorado · United States