Dearborn Station


Dearborn Station was, beginning in the late 1800s, one of six intercity train stations serving downtown Chicago, Illinois. It remained in operation until May 1, 1971. Built in 1883, it is located at Dearborn and Polk Streets, adjacent to Printers Row in South Loop. The station was owned by the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad, which itself was owned by the companies operating over its line. The station building headhouse now houses office, retail, and entertainment spaces, and its trackage yard, behind the headhouse, was redeveloped into part of the Dearborn Park neighborhood.

Description and history

The Romanesque Revival structure, designed by Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz, opened in 1885 at a cost of $400 to $500 thousand. The three-story building's exterior walls and twelve-story clock tower were composed of pink granite and red pressed brick topped by a number of steeply pitched roofs. Modifications to the structure following a fire in 1922 included eliminating the original pitched roof profile. Behind the head house were the train platforms, shielded by a large train shed. Inside the station were ticket counters, waiting rooms, and Fred Harvey Company restaurants.
Amtrak chose to consolidate its Chicago operations at the Union Station. The final intercity passenger train to depart Dearborn Station was the Grand Trunk Western Railroad's International Limited, which departed on April 30, 1971. The arrival of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway's San Francisco Chief and Grand Canyon from California on May 2 brought intercity operations at Dearborn to a close. The Norfolk & Western Railway's Orland Park commuter service, the Orland Park Cannonball, continued to use a platform at Dearborn until 1976.
By 1976, Dearborn Station's train shed was demolished and tracks were removed; the head house building was retained. The train station stood abandoned into the mid-1980s when it was converted to retail and office space. The former rail yards were converted for use as Dearborn Park.

Services

Some of the railroads that served the station include the following, with some of the more well-known name trains listed:
The following commuter rail services also operated from the station:
In blues musician Henry Thomas' 1927 song "Railroadin' Some", the "Polk Street Depot" is the next to last stop on a journey that begins in Fort Worth, Texas, and ends in Chicago.
Dearborn Station is mentioned multiple times in the 1974 "Adam's Ribs" episode of M*A*S*H, in which Hawkeye Pierce craves the barbecued ribs from a fictional restaurant adjacent to the station, but can't recall the name. He calls the station master from South Korea to get the restaurant's name and phone number. Hawkeye refers to the terminal as the "Dearborn Street Station".
"Dearborn Station" is a song by the rock band Fortune that was released in 1985.