In 1887, twelve years after the Texas and Pacific Railway built through Paris from the east to link the city with Sherman and Texarkana, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway completed an extension from the southwest, providing Paris with a vital connection to Dallas. The following year, the Paris and Great Northern Railroad was chartered to continue this line north across the Red River to connect to the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway tracks being built across Indian Territory. With Paris serving as the juncture between the Santa Fe and the Frisco railroad systems, the station marked a rare joint development between the two railroads, with the Frisco taking responsibility for construction of the station and the Santa Fe for development of the adjacent rail yard. The station was designed by Frisco company architects in St. Louis and bears resemblance to company stations in the Midwest. The most notable feature is the massive tile-clad hipped roof with hipped dormers and a deep overhang with exposed flat brackets, which broadens and heightens at the waiting room. A dramatic, four-story, seventy-seven-foot-tall tower with arched openings and a pyramidal tile roof resembles an Italian campanile. Prairie Style and Romanesque Revival influences are blended in this southernmost outpost of the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway empire.
The Union Depot housed the first venture of Fred Harvey in his long-running association of providing food service along the Santa Fe line. His first business in Texas was not a restaurant, however, but a newsstand in the depot, which operated from 1896 to 1930.