Depot Museum        
The Vicksburg Deport Museum, formerly a depot for the Grand Trunk & Western Railroad (a part of the Canadian National System), has more than 10,000 historical and genealogical items in its collection. In addition, it features a historic village of buildings important to the development of Vicksburg and the south Kalamazoo county region on the depot grounds. Museum closes January 1 to April 1.
   
 
Rollover picture of depot in 1908, and depot in present day.
The Union Station in Vicksburg, MI, was constructed in 1904 near the crossing of the Grand Trunk and Western Railroad.
   
     

The brick and stone structure was erected at a cost of $5000.00. The track crew installed a double diamond where the north-south and east-west tracks, which is preserved today. The Depot went into disuse in the 1970's. The Vicksburg Historical Society acquired and restored the building. In 1990 it was reopened as a museum.

Freight Office: The first room you step into was originally a freight office with no connecting door to the rest of the building. It was remodeled at a later time. This room is constructed of soft white pine and could not be scraped to remove old paint, so it was sandblasted resulting in the texture you see now. This area is used as the Museum's Gift Shop.

Ladies Waiting Room: In the 1900's unescorted or single women could not be seen in public with men they did not know. It was just not proper! They waited for their trains in this room, which is the next room you walk into from the Gift Shop.

Station Master's Office: This area was a very busy place. The engineers would com here for their orders. Baggage and freight orders were also received there. Tickets were sold, and telegraphs sent from this office. There were as many as 15 workers in the depot on any given day.

Tank Car: The Vicksburg Museum tank car has the reporting mark, WCHX 1711, indicating it was operated by the Walter Haffner Company.

 
Telegraph equipment like the set shown above is how the depot would communicate with trains out on runs, or other depots, relaying information back and forth in a complicated language.
The car was built in 1920 by the American Car & Foundry Company with a rated capacity of 8179 gallons. During its history WCHX 1711 was part of a fleet of tank cars operated by the Western Papermakers Chemical Company, later part of the Hercules Powder Company. WCHX 1711 was at the UpJohn Portage Road plant before being trucked to its current location at the Museum.
   
             
 
Caboose: The caboose dates from the 1960's and is open for viewing during regular Museum hours in good weather. A caboose is a manned rail transport vehicle coupled at the end of a freight train. Although cabooses were once used on nearly every freight train in North America, their use has declined and they are seldom seen on trains, except on locals and smaller railroads. The caboose provided the train crew with a shelter at the rear of the train. From here they could exit the train for switching or to protect the rear of the train when stopped.
   
Charles P. Hatch of the Empire Transportation Company invented the rail tank car in 1865.
 

Tank Car History: It was a flat car with wooden banded tubes mounted on top, capable of carrying 3,500 gallons of crude oil on the Oil Creek and Warren and Franklin Railroads in Pennsylvania. Shortly after that, railroads switched to larger wooden tanks mounted horizontally. Saddles bolted to flat cars gave the basic look of tanks cars used by the industry ever since. Empire Transportation Co. built the first metal tank cars in 1869. Mounted directly into wooden frames instead of flat cars, these heavy iron cars solved the problem of leaking wooden tanks and improved safety. As steel technology improved, steel replaced wrought iron making for lighter, but stronger tanks.
Depot Importance: It's difficult today to imagine a time when a community's sole link to the outside world was the local train station. The Depot was a focal point of the community, it housed the telegraph office and provided access to the services of the railroad. If a community wanted to grow, a railroad connection was essential, as trains offered the only practical way to move people, farm produce, and manufactured goods over long distances.
In fact, the lack of rail transportation could severely hinder, or even prevent a community's economic growth as large-scale enterprise of any sort was virtually impossible without it. Therefore, the coming of the railroad to Vicksburg in the
 
 
 
Grand Trunk Crew

1870's was recognized immediately as the key to the future for the economic success of the town and the surrounding area. Vicksburg was particularly fortunate in its rail connections because it became an intersection of a north-south line, the Grand Rapids & Indiana, and an east-west line, the Peninsular Railroad, later becoming the Grand Trunk.

In 1900, Vicksburg's old wooden depot burned to the ground, probably ignited by sparks from a passing steam locomotive prompting construction of the existing building.
At the time sixteen passenger trains and fifty freight trains stopped every day. In winter there was even more traffic because the Grand Trunk harvested ice on Sunset Lake.

Locomotives: During much of the 19th century a common locomotive design was used on most American railways with 4 large driving (power) wheels and 4 smaller load-bearing or guide wheels. It was called the "American Standard" design. Locomotives of this designs most likely were early visitors to the Vicksburg Depot.

Mail Service: One of the many benefits of the railroad was improved mail service; mail no longer had to come overland by stage coach. The mail was sorted during transit on board the trains, then bagged for distribution to stations along the route. Outgoing mail was picked up at the depot by passing trains and sometimes they didn't even stop to pick up the bag. If a particular train wasn't scheduled to stop at the depot, mail was put in a catcher pouch, tied in the middle and placed on an arm attached to a pole by the tracks. There it could be snagged with a hook by a clerk leaning out of the mail car as it moved past the depot at 30 to 40 miles per
"American Standard" Design Locomotive.
hour. Main bags destined for Vicksburg would just be heaved out onto the platform as the train rolled by. Bags of arriving mail was hauled uptown to the post office by a mail messenger, one of whom was Harry Freeman. According to Claire Carvell, a long time postal employee, Freeman made seven trips a day beginning at 5 a.m. and ending at 6 p.m.