Chelsea station (Michigan) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Chelsea
Location	150 Jackson Street, Chelsea, Washtenaw County, Michigan 48118
Former services
Preceding station New York Central Railroad Following station Grass Lake toward Chicago Michigan Central Railroad Main Line Dexter toward Buffalo Preceding station Amtrak Following station Jackson Terminus Michigan Executive Ann Arbor toward Detroit (Michigan Central)
Michigan Central Railroad Chelsea Depot
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location in Michigan Show map of Michigan Location in the United States Show map of the United States
Location	150 Jackson St., Chelsea, Michigan
Area	0.8 acres (0.32 ha)
Built	1880 (1880)
Built by	Adams & Rogers
Architect	Mason and Rice
Architectural style	Stick style Victorian architecture
NRHP reference No.	87000915
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	June 12, 1987

The Chelsea station is an old train station in Chelsea, Michigan. You can find it at 150 Jackson Street. This special building was named a Michigan State Historic Site in 1986. It was also added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. The station is quite unique. It's the only known building in Michigan designed by the famous architects Mason and Rice from Detroit.

The Story of Chelsea Station

Early Days and Freight Trains

The land where Chelsea Station stands today was first settled in the 1830s. Two brothers, Elisha and James Congdon, owned it. In 1848, they offered a piece of land to the Michigan Central Railroad. They wanted the railroad to build a station there.

The railroad agreed. The first building on the site was a freight station, finished in 1850. More freight stations were built over time. All this freight business helped the town of Chelsea grow a lot in the mid-1800s. However, in 1875, the last of these stations, which was quite old, was destroyed in a way that wasn't clear. The railroad was slow to build a new one.

A New Passenger Station

In 1880, the railroad decided to start passenger train service in Chelsea. They chose this spot for a new project. They wanted to make their country stations look much better. The railroad hired Detroit architects Mason and Rice to design the new station.

The station was built and opened in 1880. It served as a passenger station for the Michigan Central Railroad until 1975. That's when the company stopped operating. Amtrak then took over the train line. They continued service until 1981, when the station finally closed. For a few years after that, the building was used for storage.

Saving the Station

In 1985, a group of people from Chelsea formed the Chelsea Depot Association. They got help from local businesses. Together, they bought the station to stop it from falling apart. They started working to fix it up in 1986. The depot was then added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.

Since then, the building has been rented out for community events and private parties. The Chelsea Depot Association still takes care of it. In 2011, the outside of the building was repainted. New windows were also put in.

What the Station Looks Like

The Chelsea Depot was designed by Mason and Rice. It's built in a style called Stick style Late Victorian. This means it has many pointed roofs called gables. It also has fancy wooden decorations, sometimes called "gingerbread."

The station is a one-story building. It's about 100 feet long and 35 feet wide. It has wide roofs that hang far over the sides. At each end, there's a section with three bays (like big windows or doors) and a sloped roof. These sections show where the two waiting rooms used to be inside. One was for women and one for men.

Most of the building's outside walls are covered with horizontal wooden boards called clapboard. But the ends of the pointed roofs are covered with vertical wooden boards called board and batten. A brick patio goes all around the building. The station's outside looks almost exactly the same as it did when it was first built. Only a few small changes have been made, like to the chimney.