Sep 25, 2008

Trains

The Hooterville train depot opened in 1880 and has undergone several renovations since. The latest redo of the station was in 2004 by the City of Hooterville, its current owner. The station is now mainly office space and a museum. A restaurant that was in the building closed last year. Amtrak has two train routes using the station. The Texas Eagle provides Chicago to Los Angeles service via Hooterville and the Sunset Limited connects Orlando to Los Angeles. This is the terminal waiting area. Some of the original seating was left in place. The outside waiting area would have been popular before the days of air conditioning.. “Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.”--Wyatt Earp Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, depicted here, shot and killed outlaw Frank Stilwell at the Hooterville station March 20, 1882. Earp believed that Stilwell was responsible, along with Ike Clanton, for killing Morgan Earp at the OK Corral. Stilwell was waiting to ambush Virgil Earp at the station when he was surprised by the Earp party. The line between outlaw and lawman was fuzzy in the Old West. Stilwell was mainly an outlaw, but had also served as a deputy marshall. Earp most famous for being a lawman, was arrested for the killing Stilwell. He was not convicted of that charge. Locomotive 1673 logged over 1 million miles in the service of the Southern Pacific railroad. It is now on permanent display at the train depot and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It belongs to the City of Hooterville. Part of the station is now a transportation museum. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

8 comments:

alphabet soup said...

Ah! The Texas Eagle and the Sunset Limited. All aboard two trains that take you from great cities, through great cities to other great destination cities via many whistle-stops along the way. I am a big Amtrak train fan. Wyatt Earp has a point and I believe that even today there are sometimes fuzzy lines between lawmen and outlaws. Thanks for posting the photos of Tucson station.
Ms Soup

Kurt said...

I recently made the Sacramento to Chicago run on the California Zephyr, and the Sacramento to Seattle run on the whatever-it's-called, and I highly recommend both trips.

edward said...

hi

Bobby D. said...

Kim is visiting and we just read this post-- GREAT! We're thinking of taking the train from Chicago to Los Angeles via Hooterville. She just took a train to get here (The Lake Shore Special which originates in Chicago and goes to NYC and Boston.) She hopped on in Cleve. O. We like your station, it has nice lines and a southwesty feel. Maybe it has that feel because it's in the southwest.

Megan said...

I like the photos very much, but I am kind of sad there are no people in them...

bitchlet said...

why was it closed down?

Coffee Messiah said...

That looks like Clint Eastwood on the left there.

A Concerned Citizen said...

I love all-things-train and thoroughly enjoyed this post. Thank you!