UNION STATION
In 1909, Wichita Mayor Charles L. Davidson made a powerful promise to elevate the tracks across Douglas so that the traffic could pass safely under them, as well as to add a union terminal building to replace the various nondescript buildings scattered about town.
In 1910, four railroads agreed to elevate their tracks from Kellogg past Second Street and construct an impressive union station at the expense of the city. In May of 1911, a preliminary drawing of a new station by Kansas City architect Louis Curtiss appeared in the newspaper. The station was designed in the Beaux Arts style.
In July 1912, contracts were solidified for the project, which resulted in a final cost of $2.5 million for the entire improvement project, including a depot and tracks.
Ground dimensions for the station footings were 260 by 125 feet. Some materials, like the grey Bedford stone and the grey terra cotta were standard at the time; however, the extensive use of concrete and the provision for walls made largely of metal-framed glass to allow for a lot of daylight, was unusual.
The true purpose was to create a “daylight” station where prairie sunlight could provide light for reading in any corner of the station on a bright day and could illuminate to advantage the station’s many interior vistas and decorative elements.
In all, the project took 18 months of construction to complete, and opening day was March 7, 1914. The passenger tracks could accommodate 20 trains an hour, although at the time the four Union Terminal railroads only ran 30 trains a day.
Throughout the 1930s, it served as the city's primary arrival and departure point. Railroads including the Frisco and Rock Island offered passenger service to and from cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, and St. Louis.
The station closed in 1979 when Amtrak discontinued its Lone Star (Chicago–Houston) line, ending passenger rail access to the city. The nearest inter-city station is in Newton, 25 miles north, which is served by the Southwest Chief (Chicago–Los Angeles).
The station terminal and nearby buildings have since been redeveloped as a commercial office and retail campus. Cox Communications used the station as its local headquarters until 2007. In 2013, local commercial real estate company Occidental Management purchased Union Station and began renovations. Restoration/renovation was completed in 2019 at an estimated cost of $54 million, phase two including the addition of 150,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and office space on the property's east and west sides.
In recent years, several proposals have been made to bring Amtrak service back to Wichita. This has predominantly surrounded the plan to extend the Heartland Flyer, which currently runs between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Fort Worth, Texas north to Newton, Kansas. In June 2021, Amtrak released a plan that would add two more round trips between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth while extending the original round trip to Newton. In November 2023, KDOT said the service would start in 2029, but could begin sooner were the project to be fast tracked.