Local History: South Broadway Train Station, Lexington, KY

Vanished Lexington. South Broadway, three train stations, and three fires.

Until 1970, passenger trains stopped in Lexington on their way from Cincinnati to New Orleans, and like a spider web, from those points or other stops along the way, one could easily connect to Atlanta, Dallas, Los Angles, Chicago, Washington, D.C, and New York.

In a nutshell, it started in 1830 with a plan created by the city of Cincinnati to spur commerce by creating a rail line southward to New Orleans. Because of economic depressions and the Civil War, it wasn't until the 1870s that the rail line was wholly functional. It was called the “Queen and Crescent Route” (Cincinnati, known as the “Queen City”; New Orleans, known as the “Crescent City.”)

In Lexington, two stations were built: in 1877, a passenger station stood very close to the tracks that today still cross South Broadway, and a freight terminal in the 1880s that was directly across the road from the Tolly-Ho restaurant. In 1906, he first passenger terminal was destroyed by fire, and a 2-story Georgian Revival brick terminal was built in its stead, completed in 1908.

How popular was it? At its zenith in the '30s, over 15 passenger trains and 26 freight trains came past the terminal. And very much like, say, the UPS air terminal in Louisville, many businesses were built in the vicinity; indeed, for those familiar with Lexington in the 1970s, they would remember dozens of tobacco warehouses on or near Angliana Avenue and “Davis Bottom” (now more commonly known as Oliver Lewis Road and the Manchester Distillery District).

Enter the automobile and the construction of interstate highways in the 1950s, and passenger train travel declined precipitously, such that in 1970, the last passenger stopped in Lexington. For a time, the passenger terminal was used as a freight warehouse until even that was stopped and the building sat empty and untended. A few politicos came forward with ideas of refurbishing and using the terminal as a retail space (not much different than the short lived Festival Market on the corner of Main and Broadway), but the ideas remained just pipe dreams. And in 1991, the terminal was totally destroyed by arson (a teenager was later arrested and charged). After that, it was just a matter of clearing away the rubble.

The freight station closed in 1959 and was used for a hay and grain business and a warehouse. Those businesses closed down, and in 2007, that facility too was destroyed by fire.

I've seen many photos of Lexington's passenger train terminal, and to my eyes, it was a beautiful structure that I wish was still with us.