When Corona’s 1887 train depot was demolished after a half-century of use, the Victorian-style station’s redwood lumber was saved and reused to build its 1937 replacement.
Today we would think of that as a “green” building practice. At the time, during the Great Depression, it was a way to economize.
Now that 1937 Mission Revival depot is itself readying for demolition. This time the depot won’t be replaced. There’s no need. It’s the building that time forgot — more on that in a moment.
Pieces are being saved, at least.
The brass lettering, original roof tiles, sliding luggage doors, antique windows, train switch and other vintage hardware have been removed and put into storage at the City Yard for possible future use somewhere, according to city officials.
The building has been vacant for three years. Small fires, break-ins, graffiti and the theft of copper wiring are said to have left the building little more than a shell.
The depot’s long, slow slide into irrelevance, though, started nearly 60 years ago.
First came the end of passenger rail service by Santa Fe in 1968, followed in 1984 by the demise of freight service.
Another decision isolated the depot geographically.
In 1975, an overpass lifted Main Street above the railroad tracks. Traffic now flowed 20 feet above the depot rather than right past it.
The Main Street overpass cuts off traffic that once passed directly by the Corona Santa Fe Depot at surface level. After the overpass opened in 1975, getting to the depot has required a circuitous route. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)The overpass “just hid the depot,” Tom Richins, a member of the City Council, told me in April. “It was out of sight. That’s the kiss of death.”
And when Metrolink opened a Corona train station in 2002, the train depot west of Main was again passed by.
Instead, the platform and 500-space parking lot were built east of Main.
The Riverside County Transportation Authority, which had bought the depot in 1993, deemed it surplus and sold it to Corona City Hall in 2006 for $753,000.
Bob Suko, who also owned the Corona Airport Cafe, had been operating Depot Bar and Grill from the site since 1994 as a tenant. In 2012, he was allowed to buy the depot for about half of what the city had paid.
After Suko died in 2017, the restaurant changed operators and closed for good in 2022. Suko’s family listed the property for sale. The price of $3 million — said to be nearly 10 times the price Suko paid — was more than the City Council thought prudent to reclaim the building.
The buyer, Ganahl Lumber, is the depot’s neighbor. Its lumber yard is immediately north of the railroad tracks. The depot is on the south side.
Ganahl is using that sliver of property for storage. The depot is in the way. The company applied for a zone change and demolition permit and received them.
Wes Speake is on the City Council and is also president of the Corona Historic Preservation Society. When we spoke in April, he wasn’t happy about the deal.
“If you’re purchasing something just to tear it down, I think that’s wrong,” Speake told me. “A study found it was National Register-eligible. They bought it anyway.”
Postcard image depicts Corona’s Santa Fe Depot, a railroad station that opened in 1937. Passenger train service ended in 1968 and freight service concluded in 1984. (Courtesy Mary Bryner Winn)Ganahl’s local manager had no comment Monday and directed me to the Ganahl official in charge of the demolition, who didn’t return my call. It happens.
How is it that Corona Historic Site No. 13 can be demolished? Under the city’s historic preservation ordinance, an owner can request a demolition permit if saving a building would “deprive the owner of all economically viable use of the site.”
Speake would like to see the ordinance tightened.
In the 1960s and ’70s, several beloved buildings in Corona came down. They include the 1912 City Hall, where Ronald Reagan filmed 1951’s “Storm Warning”; the 1906 Carnegie Library, razed in 1978; and the 1904 Hotel Del Rey, which after being allowed to deteriorate was carefully disassembled in 1978 to allow a bank to — someone alert Joni Mitchell — put up a parking lot.
“There’s a history of us in Corona not honoring our history,” admitted Jacque Casillas, a councilmember.
Casillas and some of her colleagues contend that perception is less accurate today. Moving and restoring the depot was considered, but everyone balked at the price tag of $8 million.
“It’s unfortunate,” Casillas told me in April of the impending loss of the depot. “There’s a lot of sentiment for it. But we have to be good stewards of taxpayer money.”
I understood what she and Richins were talking about. The previous day, I had gone in search of the depot.
Google Maps directed me off the 91 Freeway at Main to Grand Boulevard, and then north on Sheridan Street. Just after Railroad Street, and before the railroad tracks, the driving directions told me to turn right.
This wasn’t like when Google tells you to drive off a cliff, but close.
I was driving down a deep but narrow strip of pavement, like an alley, hemmed in on both sides not by brick buildings but by 15-foot-tall stacks of lumber.
Yikes! I made a U-turn at the back.
The 1937 Corona Santa Fe Depot can barely be glimpsed from behind stacks of lumber on a visit in April. The depot will be demolished by the lumber company that bought the property. (Photo by David Allen, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)Out my passenger-side window, twin stacks of lumber formed a sort of wall. In the gap between them, a portion of the depot peeked out. The sight was a little comical, a little sad. No one was present.
Well, I had stumbled in here. Might as well investigate quickly. I got out of my Fiat.
The depot with its stucco walls and clay tile roof was boarded up — Ganahl, needless to say, has no shortage of wood products — but the depot’s Mission Revival-style exterior arches, forming a portico, retained a sense of glamour.
A historic plaque from 2007 was still affixed to the exterior. It gave details about the depot, which was designed by H.L. Gilman and cost $35,000.
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McDonald’s opened in San Bernardino 85 years ago — as BBQ spot $200K donor steps up to aid Riverside’s De Anza monumentI took a couple of photos, then high-tailed it out of there, circling around to Ganahl Lumber. From its parking lot, on the other side of the tracks, the back side of the depot showed copious graffiti. Traffic on the Main Street overpass flashed by obliviously.
This poor depot was marooned by time and geography. Maybe, in a literal sense, it grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.
David Allen, who thinks deeply about depots, writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.
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