Don Latimer's "A Little History of Lueders, Texas" tells us the first train ran through Lueders on February 11, 1900 and it is assumed the depot was built in that period to be ready for the first train arrival.

To read Mr. Latimer's history of the Lueders Depot, Click:...  HERE

To read Mr. Latimer's history of the Lueders Railroad, Click:...  HERE

A Summary is as follows:...................

Stanley L. Vinson, Sr. (1897-1944) was the depot agent at Lueders in the years around 1930.

The last train through Lueders occurred on November 29, 1967 however, the Lueders depot was closed 3 years earlier in 1964.

Buster Brown was the agent from 1941 until they closed the depot in 1964.

Willie Calhoun (Willie) Parker who ran a cattle feed supply store in Lueders, purchased the depot building and had it moved next to his house in Lueders.

Mr. Parker then moved his feed store operations to the depot and operated his business from there using the depot as his store and ware house.

After Mr. Parker died in October of 1966, his widow sold the depot building for $300.00 to Dwain Hale who then paid $1,000.00 to have it moved to about six miles west of Cisco, Texas just off of I-20 where he used it until about 1989, when he sold the depot to Miller Beer Clear Fork Distributors of Abilene for $10,000.00.

The depot building was moved to the Beer Distributorship at 101 Fulwiler Road in Abilene and completely restored and used as hospitality house at the distributorship.

In 2007 the depot was donated to the Ben Richey Boys Ranch and relocated to the ranch at 501 Ben Richey Drive in Abilene.

Including the relocation expense, the Boy's Club spent approximately $50,000.00 remodeling the depot where it will be used for meetings and made available to all of Abilene for weddings and other social or civic functions.

For half a century from the early 1900's to 1964 the Lueders Train Depot served it's intended purpose and then spent another half a century traveling around Texas.

From Train Depot to Feed Store to a Beer Distributor's Hospitality House to a place for young boys in the year 2007 the depot has come full circle because once upon a time in Lueders, Texas many a young boy grew up playing among the cotton bales on the Depot's cotton wharf, playing in the box cars parked on the siding, putting pennies on the train tracks, watching the steam engines take on water from the water tower and in general playing around the depot area.