Community celebrates depot's new start

SANDPOINT — As officials gathered Saturday afternoon on the platform of the Sandpoint Depot to rededicate the 1916 depot, a grain train rumbled past, the honking of the horn and clanking of the bells mixing with the laughter and applause from the crowd.

“Perfect timing,” Rob Eaton, government affairs director for Amtrak, said, shouting to be heard over the northbound train.

The $1 million project to save, then renovate the Gothic-style depot was the result of a lot of dedication and a lot of conversations by everyone involved in the project, from the city of Sandpoint and the community to BNSF Railway and Amtrak.

The push to save the depot came when the Idaho Transportation Department decided to move forward with construction of the Sand Creek Byway. The agency paid to stabilize the structure and pledged $926,000 toward its renovation.

Active negotiations to save the structure began in fall 2009 and initial conversations with Amtrak and BNSF made it clear the community wanted the depot to stay and wanted it for passenger service.

“Once they bought into that, it was just a matter of details — big details — but it was just a matter of details,” Sandpoint Mayor Carrie Logan said.

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Eaton agreed, saying there was always confidence that depot would be restored. Once the parties were able to get on the same page and move through the bureaucratic processes, Eaton said it was just the matter of conversation — “a lot of conversation” to work out the details.

“You’ve got people who, with blood, sweat and roll-up-their-sleeves-and-let’s-do-it and they have a vision for the community, like this station and get behind it,” he added. “To actually come back and celebrate this, it’s a great community party.”

Keeping passenger service at the depot’s currently location is a critical access point for the railroads, serving east-west traffic but adding the option for future north-south travel, Eaton said.

“This is a critical location for the railroads,” he added. “Moving off this point would have really restricted this area’s use in the future.”

While the building is owned by BNSF, Amtrak serves as the main lessee and would take the lead role in the addition of potential tenants, something both entities are open to if the right tenant were to come along.

There is also the option for a Friends of the Depot group to raise money for further renovations as well as expansion of Amtrak’s use of the facility, Eaton said.

“ As ridership grows for Sandpoint, I have hopes someday that we can move back into the old waiting room and expand that,” he said, “So as ridership grows, there are options.”

Those gathered applauded the community’s efforts to preserve the depot as well the work of the team — architect Tim Boden of Boden Mountain Architecture, Carlos Suarez of Suarez Engineering and Justin Schuck of Idagon Homes — tasked with making it a reality.

“This has turned out to be a wonderful example, yet again, of what Sandpoint can do when we put our minds to something,” Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Kootenai. “We’ve preserved something that is treasured in our community and it will last into the next couple of generations.”

While unable to attend due to a conflict with his son’s graduation, U.S. Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, also paid note to efforts to preserve the historic structure.

“As the oldest remaining active passenger depot on the old Northern Pacific Railroad, this beautiful facility serves not only as an important reminder of how people once traveled our vast country by rail but it also serves as a modern day depot serving the people of Idaho,” Labrador said in a statement read by staffer Judy Morebeck.

Efforts by Sandpoint officials and by the city’s Historic Preservation Commission — especially members Aric Spence, who also serves as a board member for Preservation Idaho — should be noted, said commission Chairman Dann Hall.

On the commission’s agenda for the past 12 years, the depot’s future looked bleak as recently as six years ago, Hall said.

“Fifteen years ago, this was fait accompli, this thing was history and we were being offered the bricks and that was that,” Hall said as a train rumbled past the station.

Hall then thanked the community for responding and commission members past and present for their work all of which lead to Saturday’s rededication.

“Job well done,” he added.

It’s a sentiment with which former station master Lowell Spletstoser agreed.

When he first arrived at the Sandpoint depot after 18 years in Priest River, Spletstoser felt immense disappointment.

“To me it was leaving a modern facility and moving into a barn,” he said. “Priest River had knotty pine on the inside and a tile floor you could eat off of. I came over here and when the wind would come out of the northeast, this building would shake.”

Looking around, Spletstoser shook his head, then smiled.

“They’ve done a beautiful job,” the 41-year railroad veteran said.