The Williamsville Depot was constructed in November, 1896 by the Depew & Tonawanda Railroad, The D&T RR was a subsidiary of the Lehigh Valley Railway incorporated to construct a line north from the mainline at Niagara Junction through Williamsville to connect with the New York Central's "Peanut Line" near Ellicott Creek at a place called Tonawanda Junction. The line would allow Niagara Falls bound train to bypass the congestion in Buffalo. The LV utilized NYC trackage rights to reach their yards at Suspension Bridge.
The Williamsville Depot was the only station on the line and serviced the shipping and passenger needs of the community for many years. It was built in the mainline station style that most of the mainline stations from Sayre, PA to Buffalo, NY were designed and built from 1891 to 1896. It is belived that the Williamsville depot was the last station structure completed by the original Lehigh Valley Railway which later was absorbed by its Pennsylvania counterpart, The Lehigh Valley Railroad. Passenger service ended at the depot sometime in the early 1950's, but the freight agent manned the building until 1974.
The building was sold to International Chimney in 1986 by Conrail and the WNYRHS acquired the station from them in 1990. The lands and ROW were acquired by the Village of Williamsville at the same time and the quarter mile section of the ROW from South Long to Cayuga Streets has been converted into a walking and bike path named "Lehigh Memory Trail". The WNYRHS leases the land that the station sits upon from the Village of Williamsville. The station is only one of three original mainline Lehigh Valley stations that still exist in New York State in their original locations.
Restoration - Update July 1999
In December of 1998, the Board of Trustee made the decision to start the long awaited restoration of the waiting room walls and bathroom annex. Although the required money had not yet raised through fund raising efforts, the Trustees felt it was important not to put the project off any longer and sufficient funding would be allocated to the project from the General Preservation Fund. It was also decided that the Society's volunteers would not be able to handle the daunting task of repairing the water damaged walls without professional help. They decided to solicit a bid for the work from the International Chimney Corp. Mr. Rick Lohr and International Chimney have an outstanding reputation in the historic preservation field and were familiar with the depot. We knew that the project would not be cheap, but it was of the upmost importance that the building be stabilized.
As with any project, many unknowns lay ahead. How rotted were the sills, was the foundation solid, what other damage would be uncovered? Only time would tell. Work began the last week in December, 1998. Our mild winter to that point was holding and Art Carpenter, the project manager, sent a three man crew to work. Mike, John and Joe were experienced carpenters and started work on the western waiting room wall. First order of business was to shore up the roof structure so the wall could be removed to expose the rotted sill timbers. Once completed, the deteriorated wall was removed and work began to replace the timbers with pressure treated wood. The wall was framed out as they moved towards the northwest corner of the building. The first problem encountered was that over the years, as the sill timbers deteriorated, the building began to sag. The corner was down by more that 3-1/2". That previous summer, volunteers from the Society began to jack the structure back into shape.
With the roof supported, both inside and out, the IC crew began to raise the building corner to the correct height. The next problem found was as the walls sagged, the roof structure put pressure on the side walls causing the top of the walls to begin to bow out and were 3 to 4" out of plumb. They rigged two cables connecting the two waiting room dormers to pull the roof structure back into alignment. Winter storms in early 1999, shut work down, but the building was stabilized. Our crew returned in May to complete the project. With the western wall framed and sheathed, work began on the north wall and former bathroom annex. It was first decided to leave the annex alone and work only on the wall and roof. However, it was found that the structure was a critical to the support of the roof and we would have to expand the project to replace the bathroom walls as they were totally deteriorated beyond repair. The annex was removed, along with the entire roof. Since this is a historic restoration. Mike and his crew took special care to replace visible exterior structural members with in-kind materials. The new roof rafters were milled from full dimension lumber to replicate the originals, down to the fancy rafter tail cuts. Special tongue and grooved boards were milled for the sections of the roof as well.
Many hours were spent getting the building level and plumb, but the finished product has left us with a stable base to complete the total restoration of the depot. As stated before, the total cost of this first phase of the project has cost just over $30,000.00. But it can honestly stated, that without the expertise supplied by International Chimney, the work could never have been completed in such a timely fashion. The photos below, show the extensive work involved in repairing the two walls.
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View of West End waiting room wall.
Bathroom annex removed and framing
of wall in progress |
View of NW corner of waiting room
end of Depot. Framing complete,
and work started on West End roof |
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North waiting room wall
framing complete and primed |
Deteriorated waiting room, bathroom
annex is being removed and will be
reconstructed to its original design |
Restoration Update June 2003
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The WNYRHS, Inc. P.O. Box 416, Buffalo, NY. 14231-0416 is an independent organization and has no affiliation with any other local or national group. The Society is a fully qualified organization under 501 (C) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code and all donations to the Society are tax deductible. ©Copyright 1999 - 2007 WNYRHS Inc. all rights reserved. This page last updated April 4th, 2007
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