Huntington Herald Dispatch – 26 October 1964
Written by Charles Collett
FIRST PUBLIC BUILDING and the oldest location, one that has never changed since the beginning of this town, is that of the first railway depot [Ironton, Ohio] in the Tri-State at Second and Railroad streets…Fifth and Center has been the location of a Methodist Church since 1851…The Courthouse location has been the same since 1852…Kingsbury building has been a school located at Sixth and Vernon since 1854.
The meeting to organize the First National Bank was held at the depot; hence the depot was the most important building in the town, and today it is the oldest location in the Tri-State, still in use for the original purpose for which it was set aside 117 years ago.
The sign Iron Railway was removed from the depot in 1903…The new sign read Detroit Southern…The name was again changed in 1909 to Detroit, Toledo & Ironton…That year Lawrence H. Welch, who retired as general agent, went to work at the depot…Only yesterday, we saw Mr. Welch and Bill Hunt, retired, a long-time conductor on the railroad, standing on the First National Bank corner, and that turned my thought to the old railway depot and the modern building erected when Henry Ford took over. The sign was changed to “Ironton, zero miles, Detroit 358 miles.”
This writer had just reported for work at the news office one evening at about 6:30 in May 1926 when Jack O’Shaughnessy, who sold newspapers at Third and Park Ave. Rushed into the newspaper office…he informed us that Henry Ford, on a special train, had just pulled into the depot…A few minutes later at the depot, Mr. Ford’s secretary said “it is important that Mr. Rod not be disturbed,” and we missed an interview as did other newspapermen with Ironton’s most distinguished visitor, who left town the same night.
The best we could write for the morning edition was that “his car was magnificent looking from the outside”…The special train was composed of four cars and remained in Ironton for less than two hours…While standing at the depot, the engineer and firemen did “no feather bedding”…they gave the brightly-polished steam locomotive a rub-down.
A story of the old railroad, which we hope to write someday, would recall names of more than 100 past and present Irontonians…My first memory of the old depot dates back to when William McKinley was president, and I walked to the depot with my dad each summer evening to learn the Cincinnati Reds score…Dave L. Ogg was a telegraph agent who got results at 6 p. m.
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