Rockaway Beach Train Depot
Built in 1911
Stewards of yesterday
The Rockaway Beach Train Depot
The Pacific Rail and Navigation Company, spearheaded by Elmer E. Lytle, had completed a rail line from Hillsboro to Tillamook. Before the installation of the railroad, families traveling from Portland would travel for two weeks over treacherous paths along the Wilson River in their wagons.
The depot, built in 1911 on South Third Avenue, served as a stop for freight liners, and eventually welcomed its first passenger train pulled by a steam engine in 1912.
Douglas Fir trees supplied timber for the structure. The architectural design was a clone of almost every railroad depot in the country then.*
In the winter months of 1912, when no passenger trains were arriving, the building was used as a Sunday School taught by Mrs. Hart and heated by a potbelly stove.
In 1913, more people relocated to and visited Rockaway, and the depot was moved North a quarter of a mile, and an additional platform was constructed.
Over the next decade, trains became highly sought after transportation. During this time, on Friday afternoons in Rockaway Beach, wives would welcome their husbands; children, their fathers, as the men disembarked the "Daddy Train" to visit with their families over the weekend.
Once automobiles became the popular mode of transit in the 1940s, and after the depot building sat empty for several years, it was eventually sawed in half, relocated to (where it sits now?), and used as a residence. Today, the depot is available for short-term rentals.
*The stringers were 8"x8" timbers, the floor joists, 2"x10" (fully measured, not planed to less than the full 2"x10"). The subfloor was 1"x8" shiplap and the flooring was 3/4"x4" tongue and groove. The walls were a full 4" thick with 2"x4"s used as studs, 16" on center.