Burlington Station

The importance of the railroads in the settlement of the Great Plains region is fundamental and the settlement of Adams County illustrates this point well.

The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad was organized in 1869 with a plan to lay track from Omaha across the drift hills of eastern Nebraska to the new capitol City of Lincoln and beyond--over the plains area of southern Nebraska and on to Denver, Colorado. At this time, the settlement had been confined to the fringes of the plains adjacent to the more densely settled drift hills region of southeast Nebraska (exceptions to this would be the sparse settlement along the old roads and along the recently developed line of the Union Pacific Railroad through the Platte River valley). As the road neared the plains area (near Crete in Saline County) the railroad adopted a plan of platting towns along its route to encourage settlement and to sell their land grants to pay for the road. They established stations every seven to ten miles which served as supply points and later as the nuclei for new villages. They adopted an alphabetical system for naming these towns beginning with Archer (a switching yard in Lincoln) and continuing on through Berks, Crete, Dorchester, Exeter, Fairmont, Grafton, Harvard, Inland, etc. Hastings (founded 1871) was located where St. Joseph and Denyer City Railroad crossed the Burlington line between Inland and Juniata. Development in Hastings progressed rapidly. By 1880 Hastings had become a major division point for the railroads and had trains leaving town in five different directions. By the time the new Burlington station was being completed in 1902 Hastings was considered the third major railroad center in Nebraska with eight different lines radiating in all directions from the city.

Expanded rail service along with increased public optimism following the World's Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893) and the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition (Omaha, 1893) lead to continuing discussion about a new Burlington depot in Hastings. Burlington's first depot was built in 1873, burned down, and rebuilt in 1879 on its site on Bellevue Avenue. In 1880 the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad merged with the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad thus insuring Burlington's continued status as Hastings' major railroad. As the new century approached, the discussion centered around a depot that was fitting not only Burlington's status but which was suitable as the gateway into one of south-central Nebraska's more important towns.

Architect Kimball's connection to the project is not entirely clear but he was acquainted with Burlington General Manager Holdrege and was the architect for the Burlington Station in Omaha beginning in 1896. Considered one of the finest (and one of the earliest) Neo-Classical revival buildings in the country, Omaha's Burlington Station was a masterpiece of classical design. In the Hastings depot, he continued a tradition of classical design but made significant steps toward a new idiom--one which would come to prominence some 15 to 20 years later.

The railroad station had for some time had major importance in the architectural development of cities around the country. Prior to 1900, the most significant stations were built in the Romanesque mode of design. The World's Columbian Exposition initiated a general move toward classicism which included the railroad station as a major part of its City Beautiful movement. It wasn't, however, until after the turn of the century that classicism really took hold and came to prominence (McKim, Mead, and White's Pennsylvania Station, for example, dates to 1906-10). Kimball's Omaha station, designed two years before the Omaha Exposition (1898) is especially significant in this light.

The Hasting's Burlington Station has a strong classical component in its formal composition. Basically a tri-partite composition, the building has a subtle five-part effect in the extension of the one-story element to each side (see photo #2). The Beaux-art character of the form is enhanced by the central, projecting pavilion in its classically derived gable roof with return cornice and corner pilasters. The eclectic nature of the building is seen most clearly in its details. Classically derived motifs in cut stone combine to create an overall churrigueresque effect. Window grills in the second story, an essential Spanish Colonial revival element, are here treated in neo-classical designs. While the roof and the portico show distinct Spanish influence, the eclecticism of the whole is shown again in the use of straight shafted doric columns in combination with pueblo-style bracket capitals. The significance of this building lies in its rather conservative yet early attempt to move into a new idiom. Kimball went on a design three other buildings in the mode, one (begun in 1901) being one of his major works, Omaha's St. Cecelia's Cathedral.

While the mission style of architecture (defined by Whiffen p. 213216) was considered the California equivalent of the new-classical revival, little experimentation had been done in the mode which came to be known as the Spanish Colonial Revival (Whiffen, p. 225-28) prior to the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego. After that time the style took on the proportions of a movement and the period 1915-1925 saw hundreds of buildings designed in the mode. The earlier, more simple, Mission style was apparently confined to California but one exception (which is included as a clipping from "The Improvement Bulletin", Feb. 16, 1901, p. 11, in Kimball's "Scrapbook" p. 161) we know that Kimball was aware of, that is, the new Northern Pacific Depot at Bismarck, North Dakota, designed by St. Paul architect A. H. Stem. The only other sources that we know may have possibly influenced Kimball's move in the direction of Spanish Colonial Revival is a clipping in his scrapbook (p. 235) of the Church of La Santisma in Trinidad, Mexico, taken from the American Architect and Building News, No. 605, July 30, 1887, and a photograph of an unidentified churrigueresque cathedral in Kimball's "Photograph Book" (Nebraska State Historical Society Archives). At any rate, Kimball's early move into the Spanish Colonial Revival idiom appears to be unique and generally not based upon contemporary Mission-style work in California.

Kimball was perhaps Nebraska's premier architectural talent. Born in 1862, near Cincinnati, Ohio, he received advanced education at the University of Nebraska, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Cowles Art School in Boston. He then studied in Paris under various tutors, including the great painter, Harpignes. Back in Boston, he became a partner in the architectural firm of Walker, Kimball, and Best. Kimball was in charge of the Omaha office of the firm which continued until 1899 as Walker and Kimball. He practiced alone in Omaha until 1928 when the firm of Kimball, Steele, and Sandham was formed. He died in Omaha in 1934. He was architect-in-chief of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha (1898), professional advisor to the Nebraska State Capitol Commission and is credited with writing that competition, was elected a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects in 1901, and served as A.I.A. National President from 1918-1920.

The Burlington Station stands as an important Hastings Landmark and as a forerunner of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture. Its use as an Amtrak station on the Burlington Northern (1970 merger of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy with the Great Northern Railroad) line appears secure for the near future.