Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Depot

The north elevation of the AT&SF Railroad Depot faces Shawnee Street and is the first part of the building railroad passengers arriving from the east would see. the name LEAVENWORTH is emblazoned across the frieze of the central gabled projection with arched openings. The five-bay east facade fronts the building's parking lot and also has a central projecting bay A transite addition abutting the south facade was built in 1944 of panels bolted from the exterior onto interior wooden framing. Two doors allowed access into the addition; there was no connection from the main depot to access the addition. The seven-bay west facade faces the now-abandoned railroad tracks; it features a three bay central tower with a conical roof flanked by a two-bayed gabled section on the north and the typical shed roof over two bays to the south.

Another railroad depot in Leavenworth, the Union Depot, was involved in a lawsuit in the 1880s to 1890s. A local property owner, John C. Douglass, claimed that building the depot on a city street harmed some property he owned nearby due to street closures. The Union Depot was built on S. Main and Delaware streets, near tracks that ran along the riverfront. Douglass called the depot a nuisance. The case worked its way on appeal up to the Kansas Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of the railroad company in 1898; the street closures for the depot location had been accompanied by the building of a new street nearby.

The AT&SF Railway Depot was vacant when the building was documented for listing in the National Register in 1985; some windows were boarded over. Removal of the transite addition was recommended to again be able to see the south facade, with caution since it could contain asbestos. Much of the original interior detailing remained: the transoms were filled with amber colored glass separated by wooden mullions. Although the original tile-faced fireplaces were removed in 1983, plans called for their return to the building. Original gas light fixtures had been replaced with fluorescent lighting and many of the original ceilings had been covered in small acoustic tiles. The depot was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Jaster in 1986; they invested in the property in 1983 and planned to restore and adapt the building.

The depot was listed in the National Register under Criterion C for its architectural significance and under Criterion A for its association with the AT&SF Railroad, the major passenger and freight railway in the 1880s and 1890s from Kansas to California. The company was extremely busy in 1887, the year the depot was built in Leavenworth, and completed almost 1,000 miles of tracks in Kansas. The depot actually was built by the Leavenworth, Northern, and Southern Railway Company, an affiliate established in 1885. The AT&SF leased the building from the affiliate until 1899 when it purchased the depot.

The diner now in the depot is open seven days a week for breakfast and lunch. The restaurant's breakfasts were voted the best in Kansas in 2018 by the Daily Meal.

Anonymous. "Kansas Decisions." Kansas City Journal (Kansas City, MO) May 8th 1898. , 8-8.

The Depot. Turning a restaurant vision into a reality, The Depot. January 1st 2020. Accessed July 24th 2020. https://www.thedepot1887.com/our-vision/.

Hagedorn, Martha Gray. Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad Passenger Depot. National Register. Washington, DC. National Park Service, 1986.

Kansas Historical Society. 103-3020-00146 AT&SF Depot, 781 Shawnee St. Kansas Historic Resource Inventory. https://khri.kansasgis.org/index.cfm?in=103-3020-00146.