Lutz depot drive reaches happy junction

Backers of the plan to build a train station replica have the money to build it and some cash left over for extras.

By BILL COATS

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 20, 2000

LUTZ -- Organizers now have more than enough money to reconstruct the community's train depot, the chairman of the effort announced last week.

"Coming July Fourth, we're going to unveil this rascal," Ron Stoy said Thursday at a meeting of the Lutz Civic Association.

Stoy said the success was the combination of generous donations of work and materials, plus robust fund-raising, which intensified only last month.

Sandy Ruberg, who was Lutz's ceremonial "Guv'na" for 1998-99, brandished a check for $2,000 during Thursday's meeting, sending the total to $15,000, the drive's original goal.

But Stoy said that wasn't essential to the project because costs were coming in low. He said Central State Electric had pledged to wire the depot for free; roofer Ken Dukes had pledged a free roof and an anonymous company had promised a deep discount on lumber. Gene Vrooman, a local architect, designed it for free.

Such help has reduced the project cost to $10,000 to $12,000, Stoy said.

Stoy said extra funds such as Ruberg's $2,000 could be used to enhance the depot. He hopes to add features such as lanterns and an old railroad handcar. For the open-air platform, which is to double as a stage during community events, Stoy would like to buy lights and a sound system.

"Plenty of money will be left over to continue our downtown rebuilding efforts," Stoy said.

This may be the only train depot that will never host a train. It is to be built in the coming months near the intersection of Lutz-Lake Fern Road and the CSX Transportation railroad track along U.S. 41, but not beside the track.

It is to commemorate a depot early in the 20th century that served the juncture of that line and a line that curved among the swamps to Odessa, earning the nickname the "Peavine." The depot was named "Lutz Junction" because Charles Lutz had built the Peavine and his brother William Paul Lutz was a train engineer on the main line.

The frontier community that grew up around the junction was named Lutz when it acquired a post office in 1913.

Stoy and his supporters contend the depot's chief value will be symbolic: it will set Lutz apart as a historic country community, not just another Tampa suburb. Stoy is vice president of the Civic Association, which has campaigned for rural-style development rules in Lutz.

The depot campaign essentially was launched during Ruberg's campaign for guv'na in summer 1998. She and her rivals raised $13,975, of which $2,000 was set aside for the depot.

Last year, when Danny Neeley became guv'na, $17,050 was raised, and another $3,500 plopped into the depot treasury.

Last year, supporters began selling T-shirts, hats and wooden train whistles, raising a couple of thousand dollars, Stoy said.

In recent weeks, big money poured in. Gary Wright, a neighbor of Stoy, gave $1,000. So did Harold Warren, who hopes to develop a restaurant and shopping center on U.S. 41 south of Lutz's old downtown. Leaders of the Civic Association had tentatively endorsed Warren's project and suggested "Lutz Junction" as a name.

Six donors paid $250 apiece to sponsor benches at the depot and several more gave $100 to sponsor decorative barrels. About 30 people have donated $50 apiece to have their names engraved on the depot's planks, Stoy said.

More donations are welcome, but time is running out, Stoy said.

"People should know that there's only so much room on the depot."

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