Nostalgia & History > Depot Friday: LK&W Circleville, KS

Just before Christmas back in 2015 Art Gibson, Lucas McIntyre & I went on a special depot recon mission. I had heard from a brand-new TO member who was searching for any & all historical information on the house she & her husband were living in at Circleville, KS. She had already guessed it was the former Leavenworth, Kansas & Western depot. This “landlady”, as it were, had searched online and discovered some TO discussion on the LK&W. She became a TO member on the spot, and made an inquiry on one of my threads. A meeting was set up and attended, with this thread as a result: ( Depot Friday: LK&W Circleville KS (trainorders.com) ).

The LK&W was the standard gauge replacement of the original Kansas Central 3-foot narrow gauge running west from the city of Leavenworth right on the Missouri River. In March of 2016 an expanded group of us went out investigating the old LK&W right-of-way between Miltonvale and Leonardville, KS: ( Chasing the LK&W (1st Half) (trainorders.com) ). A further search using the same title will get the 2nd & 3rd parts of our r.o.w. search covering the LK&W all the way to Leavenworth..

Referring back to the original adventure: I was busy filing Art Gibson images and found a scan of the same photo Mrs ‘Landlady’ had added to my original thread. I was able to clean it up quite a bit, so here it is with a comparison shot from the original ‘depot recon’ mission>>v

1. Future LK&W depot at Circleville, KS circa 1893. Technically it was still the Kansas Central narrow gauge until 1897.
Image now in the James T Wilson collection.

2. Former LK&W depot at Circleville, KS on December 20, 2015. Now heavily modified, the pitch of the roof, the eave bracing and the one remaining window a dead giveaways...
(image previously posted)

Thanks for looking back & forth!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/22 11:36 by santafe199.

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Curious how much was a renovation of the former depot as opposed to new construction in similar architectural style at the same location.

Perhaps I failed to mention the original depot was heavily modified...

Or, far more likely, I failed to thoroughly read your post. Thanks for the reply and photos.

alongthejointline Wrote: > ... Or ... I failed to thoroughly read your post ...

(chuckling) I had to poke some fun. You wouldn't believe how many times this happens. Back in 2011, after my longtime KS Gang bro Bob Helling finally talked me into signing up for TO, he told me this kind of stuff would happen. A lot. And he kinda-sorta coined the phrase: "You can lead a railfan to words, but you can NOT make him read them..." Oh, how true... :^)

Lance

Lance, thanks for putting this one on, and thanks to the people who saved it,  this is the only view of the Circleville depot that I have seen. The KCNW also came through Circleville, and I don't have a close up photo of that one.  The KC/LK&W/UP line went 165 miles of small populated towns, not a lot of business to save the line during the depression. KCRW287

KCRW287 Wrote: > ... The KCNW also came through Circleville ...

Yeah... I remember before Lucas & I did our shoot-around, we all sat at her kitchen table. Art was in fine form, supplying all sorts of RR history about Circleville. I wanna say he told us the 2 lines crossed somewhere in or around Circleville. We did mosey "uptown" to see where he thought the KCNW track ran through town while the KS Central ~ LKW ~ UP line skated the south side of town. In Google Maps the address of the house/depot is "102 Mill St". But after all of the modification & additions the distant street view doesn't look much like a RR depot. Mill St also shows as KS hwy 79/254th St outside city limits...

Lance

Lance

Thanks as well for this post.  You keep finding great and historic photos!

Jeff N
Olathe