Razed Train Station Yields 80-Year-Old Wires, Tickets
by Clarence Graham (News-Journal Staff Writer)
NEW VIENNA -- Railroad stations, once the center of long-distance communications, commuting and industrial activity, are disappearing from the American scene. At least, from the more rural areas.
The depot at New Vienna has been sold by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and is being torn down. But not before it yielded a few memories.
Harold Wallen, New Vienna Route 2, was the original buyer but antique dealers Dale and Wanda Marks of New Carlisle, have purchased the building from Wallen. [No information readily available on the Marks or antique dealers in New Carlisle.]
Wallen will tear the building down and the Marks will take the lumber to their farm and rebuild the depot in its original form.
The structure is of fine pine and Wallen says it was well constructed with the best lumber. Each piece is held together by a wooden pin. In early building construction these pins took the place of nails, bolts and spikes.
Each piece of lumber is full-sawed, meaning if it was to be a two-inch thick by 10 feet long piece, it was exactly that.
Wooden pins make dismanteling [sic] easier. Wallen will drive the pins out and take the building apart piece by piece.
When Wallen and his crew began tearing down the second story of the depot they found some interesting papers. Telegrams that were sent as far back as the year 1891 and freight tickets from the same year were also discovered.
Hundreds of these tickets and telegrams bearing such well-known names in the area as Derivan, Swingley, Bernard, Nordyke, Rice and others were stored in the top of the railroad-owned structure.
The telegrams were everything from business to personal. Some told of arrivals of grain or coal shipments to local merchants. Others informed local residents as to what the stock market was doing. One personal telegram read, "Dear wife, Missed train, arrive tomorrow."
The Cincinnati Enquirer was shipped to the Commercial Gazette in New Vienna by train.
The depot in New Vienna was of X-style architecture and consisted of a waiting room, office for the station master, baggage room and a covered dock area.
Most of the train depots along the miles of track have been closed and only main stations such as Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland remain in operation. The depot, the telegrams and the freight tickets are a link with the New Vienna of the past. The restoration of the depot will keep alive a part of yesterday's America. [--end]
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Originally published January 22, 2011 in the Uible family blog.
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