During the early days, when the train and the railroad was king, there was the “Prairie Line” of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company that hauled passengers and goods and valuable trade like lumber all throughout the Northwest including the great State of Washington, with the quite but persevering logging town of Hoquiam being part of that network of railroads.
Locomotives with their trains such as the “Grays Harbor Express” the “Puget Sound Express” or the “Grays Harbor Limited” were serving the lines of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company went west from Lakeview to Nisqually on the American Lake Line proceeding towards Grays Harbor destinations of Moclips and of course the logger’s city of Hoquiam near the mouth of the river that is its namesake.
Nowadays, the Prairie Line trains has stopped going there, with the advent of the personal automobile and cheaper trucking services and air fare, negatively affecting the business of the railroad and its trains, leading to its gradual demise as a regular occurrence for the people and the city by large.
In 1914, a train depot was erected in the logging town of Hoquiam to serve as the terminus or the end of the line for three railroads of the North Pacific Railroad Company, these were the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railways, The Puget Sound & Pacific Railroad and the Northern Pacific Railways. The train depot is one of the few remaining witnesses to a bygone era of the Prairie Line that was also part of the history of the residents then.
Most of the prairie line has now been largely ignored and most of it will probably cease to exist quietly without anyone noticing and with most of its historic railroad and stations having no chance of ever being re-built to be appreciated by future generations to come.
The city and its residents have and will always be passionate lovers of history and heritage, this attitude has been proven worthwhile and honorable in many instances throughout its time as a community and the train depot is a testament to this attitude. Unfortunately for the rest of the Prairie Line with its old locomotives and disused railroads and dilapidated stations and depots, they will pass history and slowly fade away through rust and rot never to be seen or heard from again inevitably.
But fortunately, this is not true with the city of and its residents, who have always been proud and appreciative of what the trains made possible for their community before. A USD $1.2 million grant from the federal government, through the Federal Highways Department made it possible for city officials and residents to refurbish and keep alive the grandness of the old but beautiful train depot that was donated to the City and its people by the respectable Burlington Railroad Company who were the owners of the 96 year old depot before the donation.
The station has been extensively rehabilitated and converted to serve as a Washington State Driver Licensing station for a lease of 10 years, with a portion of the lease updates going to the future rehabilitation and maintenance of the historic, beautiful and still useful train depot. The fate of the once proud “Prairie Line”. A railroad line that was once fought over and sought-after as the most vital feature for development for local Northwest communities is mostly to be forgotten and laid to waste, but not in the City of Hoquiam were traditions and heritage are always something they cherish, just like the restored train depot, its not only serving the city residents but people from all over the state of Washington just like it was meant to be when it was first built.
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