Arizona and Eastern Railway Depot

In 1898, work was completed on the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railway (GVG&N) connecting Globe to the Southern Pacific main line at Bowie and, from there, to Tucson, Phoenix, Yuma, and beyond. This rail connection contributed to increased copper production for the town’s mining district and economic growth for the community as a whole. The Globe’s population swelled as the railroad brought new waves of miners and immigrants, including Italians, Slavonians, Chinese, Cornish, Irish, and Austrians, as well as Anglos and Hispanics.

In 1910, the Arizona Eastern Railway acquired the GVG&N and began making infrastructure and facility improvements. In 1916, the railroad retained Trost and Trost of El Paso to design a complex consisting of a passenger depot, restaurant building, and the Wells Fargo Express office. This was one of several projects the firm realized in Globe and nearby Miami. The depot complex is located at the southern approach to the central business district, its fired red-brick buildings executed in a modestly classical style. The depot is a two-story, 92 x 36-foot building with concrete accenting its brick walls: paneled concrete lintels at the “cottage-patterned” first-floor windows; a concrete belt course doubling as a continuous sill for second-story windows; and a denticulated, pressed-metal cornice, supported by scroll brackets with a concrete-capped brick parapet above. The one-story Wells Fargo Express Office is essentially a scaled-down version of the depot building. The one-story restaurant was similar to the Wells Fargo building, but with a more modest cornice; it is no longer extant.

The Arizona Eastern/Southern Pacific Depot, and the Wells Fargo Express Office were both listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 as part of the Globe Downtown Historic District. The Globe Main Street Program restored the buildings in 2005, under the direction of Otwell and Associates, Architects, of Prescott. The Express Office now houses a rail history museum, while the passenger depot serves as a meeting hall for several community organizations and as a rental facility for special events.