Built
in 1869 for the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis (forerunner of the Chicago
& Alton, and later the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio) the depot had been the subject
of a preservation effort since 1997. Previously,
the station's owner, Union Pacific, insisted that the building be removed from
their property. The Wilmington depot is an all-brick building with load-bearing
exterior walls; the cost of moving it off-site would be prohibitively expensive. After
years of stalled negotiations, the Union Pacific, the City of Wilmington and the
Wilmington Depot Association reached an agreement that would allow the restoration
of the depot. UP gave up on its demand to move the building and had agreed to
lease the property to the association at a very reasonable annual rent. A
“Save-the-Depot” group was resuming fundraising for the restoration.
It looked like the depot would be saved. 
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However, the depot's existence was put in jeopardy again, when engineers determined
that the depot's location was in the way of improvements to the track and right-of-way
between Chicago and St. Louis as part of Illinois' project to upgrade to let Amtrak
trains to run at speeds up to 110 miles per hour. Because of this project,
the Wilmington depot was finally demolished in the Winter of 2012. |
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