Juanita Timberlake, who worked at the depot for 29 years beginning in 1946, talks with contractor Jack Elliott about a freight and baggage scale she used to use.
Layers of plaster have been removed from walls in the old Southern Pacific train depot. Original wainscoting is being scraped in an effort to discover 100-year-old paint colors. And an artifact miraculously was saved from the days when trains stopped at the depot.
A wheeled scale used for weighing baggage and freight is still inside the depot. Friday morning, former Southern Pacific employee Juanita Timberlake explained how the scale was used.
Carrie and Ron Woliver from Houston, founders of the Friends of the Orange Depot, along with other members of the group looked at the interior after two months of work by contractor Jack Elliott and his crews.
Carrie Woliver is a native of Orange who started the non-profit group to restore the long-vacant depot. Trains quit stopping in 1975. A private individual leased and later bought the depot. The roof burned in 1990. Though it was repaired, the depot was left vacant for years. For a long time, doors were open. Transients and vandals went inside, but the scale on wheels remained.
The work crews have scraped woodwork through layers in an effort to find the original colors. The group hopes to restore the depot to look similar to when it was built in the early 1900s.
Elliott said it appears the wainscoting and trim was hand-chiseled. In those days, carpenters didn’t have machines available. Also, he’s noticed that the work isn’t even like a machine.
The window frames have worn green paint. Elliott said the wainscoting looks like it was a gray stain. The exterior cast iron trim, now rusty-colored but solid, was painted black.
More than an inch of plaster was scraped and chipped off walls to show the original red brick. With the plaster removed, the signs of remodeling through the years is visible. Some windows were bricked over, others were created, and rooms were reconfigured.
The old train station will be turned into a museum with a gift shop, and will also have a spacious community room for receptions and meetings.
Friends of the Orange Depot is continuing to raise money for the restoration and has a target of $150,000 by the end of the year. The Meadows Foundation of Dallas has awarded a matching grant of $50,000; so if $50,000 is raised the foundation will match that amount.
The group is still selling commemorative bricks that will be used in the outside landscaping and garden.
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