Historical depot rejoins society

Dec. 08--FORT MADISON -- The historic Santa Fe Depot on the has been the defining characteristic of Fort Madison since it was built more than 100 years ago.

Thanks to a planned Amtrak platform, that historic landmark will host train passengers for the first time since 1968.

"It's a great opportunity to bring in about 8,000 visitors a year without dropping them in an industrial area of the city," said city manager Byron Smith. "To reuse a great historic building -- that's another bonus."

The current Amtrak depot sits on 20th Street, overlooking the city's wastewater treatment plant.

Plans to build an Amtrak platform at the depot have been in the works since 2006, and the project has seen multiple delays. Bids for the project will be let in February, which is a month later than the city originally planned.

"We had gotten frustrated with some of the hold-ups, but we feel it's going well now," Smith said. "By summer, we hope to be operating Amtrak out of that depot."

The project comes in about $3.2 million, and 80 percent of that already has been raised through grant money. Once the platform is built, an Amtrak office and waiting room will be moved into the east end of the depot.

Raising the depot

Before bids for the platforms could be let, the three buildings that comprise the depot had to be raised 5 feet in the air to ensure future flooding wouldn't have an impact on train services. The three depot buildings were elevated and refurbished starting in 2011, and that project finally came to completion about a year ago. Raising the three buildings also will put them on the same level as the BNSF mainline track, which has been elevated over the past 45 years to stay above the flooding Mississippi River.

"When we do the platform, it's going to line up with the current height of the track, and that should be in good relationship with where the building currently is," Smith said.

Smith said he is excited visitors will have a chance to see the North Lee County Historical Society museum as soon as they get into town. The society has leased the three buildings that comprise the complex since 1970, housing a museum there with more than 17,000 artifacts. Though part of the museum will stay intact at the depot, the rest will be moved to the nearby CB&Q depot, constructed in 1898. The building sits just across the tracks and served as the temporary museum while the depot was elevated.

"We suggested (the historical society) modify their hours so they can offer historical tours," Smith said.

Turning the Santa Fe around

When historical society president Andy Andrews took over operations of the Santa Fe depot museum in 2008, he made a lot of changes. One of the biggest changes was expansion of the operating hours.

"I had this idea that museums should be open 360 days a year, seven days a week," Andrews said.

The museum was shut down by the Flood of 2008 and would stay that way until September 2009. Before it was shut down, the museum didn't offer winter hours and was closed to the public for several months at a time.

The museum now is open on a daily basis, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday. The admission charges also were waived, garnering enough good will and interest from the community to more than make up for the lost dollars. Andrews pointed out many potential historical item donors likely chucked their stuff when they saw the museum doors were closed.

"A lot of older people travel in the winter months when things aren't crowded," Andrews said. "A lot of that stuff probably went to the landfill."

Before 2008, the Santa Fe museum saw about 300 visitors per year, taking in more than $600 through the gift shop. Now that donations are optional, the museum sees about 1,000 people a year and brings in more than $4,000 worth of donations on an annual basis.

Of course, staffing for that many hours isn't easy, and Andrews spends a lot of his time watching over the museum and providing tours during visitor hours.

"We're always looking for volunteers," Andrews said.

The historical society keeps a detailed record of the artifacts collected over the years, though it still is a work in progress. Thankfully for Andrews and his fellow volunteers, computer technology has aided greatly in the process.

"When I took over, we had paper records, and a lot of them were damaged in the flood," Andrews said. "We started using the PastPerfect (museum software), and we have about 17,000 items listed in the system. There's a lot more than that. We're still putting them in the system."

A century of upkeep

The Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway built the Santa Fe Railway depot complex in 1910 after the original wood depot built in 1888 was destroyed by fire. The depot just happened to be built at the same time plans for the hydroelectric lock and dam in Keokuk were announced. Completed in 1913, the dam raised the river between Keokuk and Fort Madison, allowing passage of steamboat traffic during the winter.

That rising water would prove to be a big problem for the Santa Fe depot in future years.

The Railway Express Agency building was added to the west end of the depot in 1922, and brick walls were added to connect the two buildings. This gave the appearance of just one building and added storage space for baggage carts and wagons.

The Santa Fe Railway closed the depot complex in 1968, opening up the new depot on 20th Street that same year. Most folks assume the building naturally passed into the hands of the historical society, but it wasn't quite that easy. The entire depot complex was donated to Fort Madison in 1970, but the North Lee County Historical Society didn't open it as a museum until 1972.

"(Santa Fe) offered it to the city in 1968, and they said they didn't want it. In 1970, Santa Fe offered it to the city one more time before they were going to bulldoze it down," Andrews said. "We got down on our hands and knees and begged them to keep it, and the city gave us a 10-year lease if we took care of it for the rest of our lives."

According to Andrews, convincing the city wasn't easy. Though the historical society raised $6,800 for a chain-link fence to surround the complex, the motion to hand it over to the historical society initially was tabled.

"At the next council meeting, we invaded the council chambers, and that helps a lot of the time," Andrews said with a grin.

Though Andrews didn't become president of the historical society until 2008, his involvement stretches back much further, and he helped his parents out with insulation projects and other manual labor for the society when he was a child.

"Now I have my son helping me," he said.

By the time the historical society inherited the building in 1970, they had a lot of work to do. The first section of the museum wouldn't open up for another two years.

"It was pretty well in disarray after sitting empty for two years," Andrews said. "The windows had been knocked out, and they had a fire inside where part of a waiting bench was burned. There was a lot of graffiti inside."

A history of flooding

Flooding inside the depot didn't become a serious problem until the last half of the 20th century, though a black-and-white photo from 1946 shows the Mississippi River covering the tracks in front of the depot. As more floodplains were walled off with levees, the problem became more persistent.

"Before we elevated these structures, we had people ask if the building is sinking," said historical society member and train enthusiast Steve Rippeteau. "It's not. The flooding water continued to rise, and every time, Santa Fe and BNSF were determined to keep running (by raising the tracks). And they did a pretty good job."

The depot complex has experienced four flood events that resulted in a claim for payment of flood insurance in 1993, 1996, 2001 and 2008. The 1996 incident came from a flash flood and storm sewer run off. But as everyone in the area knows, the two big ones are the Flood of '93 and the Flood of 2008.

"The only time we got flood water in here was in 1993 and 2008, and we gradually got back in shape," Andrews said. "After the 2008 flood, we were open real quick. After the 1993 flood, it was two years before we got it back open."

There actually were two flooding events in 2008, though not many remember the first one in April of that year.

"The river was not high enough to flood the depot complex, but it caused the storm sewer system to back up and flood the entire basin the Santa Fe depot complex sits in," Rippeteau said. "We were able to keep the depot complex dry by running four 2-inch pumps."

Unfortunately, all that effort was for naught when the Mississippi River rose to a historic crest of 25.73 feet on June 17, 2008.

"We thought we could stay ahead of it again," Rippeteau said. "The city and others predicted slightly higher river levels than in April and May, but no one predicted the volume and speed that the surge came at us."

The river topped the sandbags surrounding the west end of the parking lot June 13, and the fast rising water made it difficult to move those sandbags farther in to protect the depot. By the morning of June 14, the water came up from under the building and all around the complex. The interior of the depot was flooded for a two-week period with the contents still in the building.

"The 2-inch pumps were not enough to stay ahead of the rising water," Rippeteau said.

The rising Mississippi threatened to flood the depot again earlier this year but never made it past Riverview Park. Considering the depot now sits 5 feet higher than it used to, floodwater shouldn't be a problem. But it can cut off access to the depot.

"This became an island during the flooding this year," Rippeteau said. "That's the funny thing. They ignored our advice to elevate the north parking lot, and if they had started ramping it up, it would have been accessible."

Prize possession

In addition to running the Santa Fe and CB&Q depot, the historical society also manages the one-room school known as Brush College, the former Lee County Jail, the Santa Fe Waycar and the Santa Fe 2913 locomotive.

Prize among the historical society's collected pieces is an 1873 Silsby fire engine, which was donated in 1972 -- the same year the depot opened as a museum.

The fire engine was stored in one of the vacant volunteer fire department buildings for decades, which means it's still in pretty good condition. The historical society didn't even have to refurbish it.

"We were lucky it never ended up in a junk yard," Andrews said.

The city of Fort Madison purchased the fire engine in November 1873 for $7,751.

"We had to use it until 1923 or 1924. We got a new fire truck in 1911, but it couldn't pump water into the air very well," Andrews said. "We bought a used 12-cylinder fire truck form Des Moines, but it couldn't pump worth a damn, either."

According to Silsby, the manufacturer of the fire truck, the 1873 engine is the oldest of three still documented in Iowa. The Silsby made its grand return to the public eye during the Tri-State Rodeo Parade earlier this summer, pulled by a team of horses.

"Since the 1952 parade, it hadn't been towed by horses," Anderson said. "We did use it in the 2008 rodeo parade, but we had it on a trailer."

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