Bronte Depot

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture Bronte, Texas, out in Coke County, sometime around the turn of the last century. The trains had just found this little town.

The first one rolled in, and folks knew right then they needed something worthy of the occasion. Something solid. Something that would last.

So they called on a local stonemason by the name of James C. Lammers. And James C.

Lammers did not disappoint. He got to work, quarrying his materials right there from the local land, shaping stone lintels, fitting window sills, laying up a red tile roof that would catch your eye from down the track. Two years after that first train arrived, in 1911, the Bronte Depot was complete.

Built by local hands, out of local stone, for a town that was ready to be connected to the wider world. The railroad that first claimed it was the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway. That's a name with some ambition in it, I'll tell you that.

Mexico to Kansas City, and Bronte, Texas, sitting right along the way. But railroads, like rivers, change course over time. In 1928, the depot was sold to the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company.

New owners, same stone walls, same red tile roof James Lammers had set in place all those years before. The Santa Fe kept things running out of Bronte for decades, right up until 1967, when operations here were discontinued. The trains stopped coming.

But that depot, built of locally quarried materials by a man who knew his craft, it's still standing. Stone has a way of outlasting everything else. And Bronte's depot is proof of that.

What the marker says

Built by local stonemason James C. Lammers (1874-1942), this depot was completed in 1911, two years after the first train arrived in Bronte. Built of locally quarried materials, the depot features stone lintels and window sills and a red tile roof. Originally owned by the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient Railway, the Bronte depot was sold in 1928 to the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company, which discontinued operations here in 1967. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1989