Upriver History: Windsor Locks' 1875 rail depot, built as trains replaced the canal
The brick station on Main Street served a steady flow of passengers until World War II.
WINDSOR LOCKS - In 1875, a new passenger station went up on Main Street in Windsor Locks to better handle travelers on the Hartford-Springfield rail line, according to the building's 1975 National Register of Historic Places nomination.
Transportation built the town, the nomination says. Windsor Locks grew around a canal built in 1829 to get around the falls in the Connecticut River. Starting in 1844, the railroad replaced the canal and kept the town's economy growing. Rail traffic rose steadily, and the station served a steady flow of passengers until World War II.
The one-and-a-half-story brick depot measures 82 by 25 feet. Its steep roof, covered in fish-scale slate shingles, reaches out over the platforms on large wooden struts. Octagonal ticket and telegraph offices jut out from the walls, so they could be reached from either the platforms or the waiting room.
When the nomination was written in June 1975, twelve trains a day still passed through the station on the Amtrak line, and the waiting room kept its original wainscoting. The building also showed neglect, including broken windows and missing shingles, and the Windsor Locks Redevelopment Agency had recently voted to buy it, with tentative plans to tear it down. The station was entered on the National Register that September.
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