Niles rail depot (#1216)

Niles rail depot, built by Southern Pacific in 1901. Though not well known, this depot was important in the rail history of the west since it was the west end of the very first transcontinental railroad. If you know rail depots, you’ll quickly realize this is sitting backwards. There’s a convoluted story behind that – after SP discontinued passenger service, they wanted to develop this piece of land, so the depot was disassembled and moved to a nearby location. BUT, Niles folk wanted it back and the city of Fremont (Niles was a city but later became a part of Fremont) wanted to restore the area, thus they worked out a deal which resulted in the depot being moved back. Since the rail side of the depot is more attractive, it was rotated for placement on the site. The depot is built of redwood and is one of the few depots built with ornamentation at the top of the columns.

Source: nilesdepot.org/niles/history.html