Old Brookeland Depot

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Way out in San Augustine County, there was a railway line called the Great Northern. Organized in 1898 by a man named John Henry Kirby, a leading Texas lumberman.

Now you don't organize a railway out of thin air, and you don't do it without a reason, but what those reasons were, well, the marker doesn't spell that out, so neither will I. What I will tell you is that along that line sat a depot. A proper one, built in 1914, and it bore the name Brookeland, given in honor of the Brooke family, who donated the very site where that depot stood.

So there it sat, the center of community life. Trains coming and going, people coming and going, the whole rhythm of a town beating right there on that platform. Now here's where things get interesting. 1960 rolls around, and Sam Rayburn Dam gets built.

Big enough, consequential enough, that the Great Northern Railway, which by then had become part of the Santa Fe system, had to be relocated. Relocated. The whole line, moved.

And when the line moved, that 1914 depot, that old heartbeat of the community, was suddenly surplus. Surplus. Just sitting there.

Most things that end up surplus end up forgotten. But not this one. Mr. and Mrs.

Ray H. Horton had other ideas. They moved that depot forty miles, forty miles, and converted it into a farmhouse, taking care to preserve its unique features along the way.

A train station that became a home. The Brooke family gave the land so a depot could stand. The Hortons made sure that depot would keep standin', just somewhere else, as something else entirely.

Some buildings, it turns out, have more lives than one.

What the marker says

Formerly on Great Northern Railway, organized 1898 by John Henry Kirby, a leading Texas lumberman. Named for the Brooke family, donors of depot site. In 1960, when Sam Rayburn Dam was built, G. N. Railway (part of Santa Fe system) was relocated. This 1914 depot-- once center of community life-- became surplus. Moved 40 miles, it has had unique features preserved in conversion to farm house by Mr. and Mrs. Ray H. Horton. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966