Tarpon Springs will reopen the renovated station Saturday to give visitors a sense of life on the railroad.
By ROBIN STEIN
Published November 15, 2005
TARPON SPRINGS - The railroad pulled out years ago, and outside, where the tracks once lay, cyclists and bladers file past.
But on Saturday, the train depot will open for business again.
City officials will celebrate a million-dollar renovation of the depot with fanfare and local cuisine. Members of the Ladies' Garden Club and the Women's Club will dress in late Victorian period costumes for the occasion.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony comes nearly 100 years after the building was constructed and marks the completion of a yearlong restoration spearheaded by the Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society, which has run a museum in the depot since 1978.
"When you walk through the front door, it takes you back in time," Mayor Beverley Billiris said. "You can imagine the people, waiting in line, buying tickets."
Long before the idea of Greek pizza was born or condo conversions dominated the City Commission's agenda, the railroad was the primary means of transport in Pinellas County.
Passenger travel gave way to freight traffic in the mid 1970s, and CSX Transportation sold the Tarpon Springs and Dunedin stations, and the 14.5 miles of track in between, to the state Department of Transportation for $9.5-million.
But the building was in bad shape. The kitchen was roach infested, and pigeons were nesting in a gash left by a truck driver who was too optimistic about his semi's turning radius.
It took some persistent campaigning and copious grant writing to secure the city, state and federal funding, the mayor said. Most of the money for the renovation came from $746,500 in federal funds administered through the DOT.
Officials put the money to good use.
Gone now are the asbestos, the lead paint and the monkey carcass discovered beneath the floorboards. The hope is that the new and improved landmark will draw tourists and set the spirit for the city's fragile redevelopment process.
"We are very much aware of heritage tourism," said Judith LeGath, the historical society's curator. "There's nothing Disney here. It's all authentic."
Of course, authenticity means including the good, the bad and everything in between.
There is the nostalgia. Spanning the front wall is a photomural of Spring Bayou taken in the 1920s. The street bustles with men in pinstriped suits and ladies carrying parasols.
Then there are the artifacts that simply remind us how times have changed.
On an old menu from the Atlantic Coast Line, one of the dinner choices is "Braised beef tips, a la Deutsch" for $3.40. For 75 cents, travelers could enjoy a glass of burgundy or sauterne with their "hearty, robust meat."
On a warped piece of clapboard from World War II are pictographs of fighter planes numbered 1 through 14. One column is titled United States, the other British. Stenciled across the top is "Identification of Aircraft Study Sheet."
And finally, among the relics set out amid the freshly painted green trim and shiny floors, are the bad.
At the center of the medical vignette is a turn-of-the-last-century metal dentist's chair: no laughing gas, no Novacaine and no upholstery.
The wall that once divided the segregated waiting rooms has been torn down, but the starkly unequal ticket windows and sitting areas remain.
There is more to come, said James K. Payne, president of the historical society. He has found a place that builds replicas of old-fashioned hand cars, the kind with pump handles that railroad workers used for repairs. And he'd love an authentic caboose.
But those extras will have to wait for fundraising to catch up to the historical society's ambitions.
"We don't have the money right now to spend on anything we don't absolutely need," Payne said.
