Arthur Stilwell of Kansas City built two important railroads in Texas to connect Kansas City to the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. In 1900, he planned a 1,600-mile railroad from Kansas City to the Pacific near Topolobampo, Mexico, bypassing California ports to trade with Asia, but the Mexican Revolution disrupted construction. The Kansas City, Mexico and Orient (KCM&O) Railway line’s assets were sold in 1928 to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, which benefited from the West Texas oil boom that began in 1923 with the Santa Rita No. 1 gusher in Reagan County west of San Angelo.
This passenger station, a major connecting point and a regional office center for the KSMO, is a two-story red brick structure with a barrel-tile roof and a three-story dispatcher’s tower. Cast-stone window lintels, sills, a belt course, and a water table contrast with the brick walls. As was common, the ground floor was divided into separate waiting rooms for white and black passengers. The second floor held company offices. A long canopy with a hipped tile roof wraps the building, extending along the railroad siding. The station was restored in 1995 as the Railway Museum of San Angelo.
Across S. Chadbourne Street at number 702 is the architecturally coordinated former KCM&O freight depot (1910), now the Santa Fe Crossing Senior Center. On the next block at 618 S. Chadbourne, the triangular buff-brick Hagelstein Commercial Building (1927), with its Spanish Mission cast-stone parapet, decorative tile roof elements, and black and white tile bands was converted in 2005 into Station 618, an annex to the Santa Fe Crossing that houses a library, computer rooms, and spaces for other activities.