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Rock Island Railroad Depot

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1915. E. North Front St. between N. Livermore and N. Prairie sts.
  • PR4 Rock Island Depot, Hazen, Hwy 70 (Photograph by Claudia Shannon)

This through-combination railroad station in downtown Hazen now sits on a boulevard where two sets of tracks once ran. Built by the Rock Island, Chicago, and Pacific Railroad (Rock Island Line) in a style similar to other stations on their line, the building mixes Craftsman features with half-timbering in the gables and has stucco and brick surfaces, bracketed eaves, and a tile roof. A similar station (c. 1920; Main Street at Court Avenue) on the Rock Island Line can be seen at Carlisle, ten miles to the west in Lonoke County. The Hazen station is currently used by the community for meetings and tourist information.

The Rock Island Railroad played a significant role in Arkansas history, with publicity campaigns in Illinois and Iowa aimed at encouraging people to move to Arkansas. The City of Hazen’s position as a railroad stop proved to be advantageous during the boom years of 1905–1920, when rice, a mainstay of the Arkansas economy after the first decade of the twentieth century, quickly became the dominant freight from this area. The Rock Island Railroad closed this line and removed the rails because the tracks flooded so often. The routes today from Memphis to Little Rock go south through Stuttgart to Pine Bluff or north through Bald Knob.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors
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Citation

Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors, "Rock Island Railroad Depot", [Hazen, Arkansas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AR-01-PR4.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Arkansas

Buildings of Arkansas, Cyrus A. Sutherland and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018, 256-257.

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