Former Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Station (Yardmaster Management Center)

In the early twentieth century, the C&O Railrway built nine new passenger stations along its line. The Colonial Revival style, then in vogue, was chosen for all, with the largest station fittingly built in Huntington. Designed to accommodate offices as well as passengers, the station is a formal, academic brick building that at first glance looks more like a civic structure than a railroad depot. A giant-order Ionic portico with full entablature fronts the three-story, hiproofed block, while a prominent pediment with a large Palladian window at the third-floor level takes the place of the portico on the former trackside elevation. There, one-story sheds extended in each direction to accommodate fifteen-car passenger trains.

Located several blocks south of downtown and built to replace an 1873 mansard-roofed structure just to the west, the station is set far back from the street, facing the landscaped plaza where the bronze statue of Collis P. Huntington, now at Heritage Village, originally stood. The former station now serves as offices for CSX Transportation (successor firm to the C&O). A porte cochere at the western end has been replaced by a new stair tower, the only noticeable change in a sensitive adaptation of the building to its new use.