Milton station (New York) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Milton
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West elevation and south profile, 2008
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| Location | Old Indian Trail, Milton, Ulster County, New York | ||||||||||
| Tracks | 1 | ||||||||||
| Services | |||||||||||
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Milton Railroad Station
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| Location | Milton, NY | ||||||||||
| Nearest city | Poughkeepsie | ||||||||||
| Area | 0.61 acres (2,500 m2) | ||||||||||
| Built | 1883 | ||||||||||
| Architect | Wilson Brothers & Company | ||||||||||
| Architectural style | Stick and other Late Victorian styles | ||||||||||
| NRHP reference No. | 07000873 | ||||||||||
| Added to NRHP | August 28, 2007 | ||||||||||
Milton station is an old train station located in Milton, New York. It sits right by the Hudson River. This building was made for the West Shore Railroad in the late 1800s.
Trains stopped carrying passengers here in 1959. Milton station is one of the few old West Shore Railroad passenger stations still standing. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. A local winery once used it for wine tastings. Now, a community group is fixing it up. They plan to turn it into a community center for the Town of Marlborough.
What Milton Station Looks Like
The station is on Dock Road, which goes from downtown Milton down to the river. It's in an old industrial area. A short, overgrown train track, called a siding, is next to the station. This siding was once used to load and unload freight. It is no longer connected to the main train tracks. Those tracks are still active and run between the station and the river.
The station building is one story tall. It is about 30-by-83-foot (9.1 by 25.3 m) and shaped like a rectangle. It has a wide roof with overhanging edges. The outside walls are painted red. The older part of the building sits on a sandstone base. The newer part rests on stone supports.
Inside, most of the space was for passengers. There's a waiting room with a fireplace. There was also a ticket office and two bathrooms. The walls in the passenger area have special wood panels. Some old railway communication tools are still in the attic. Freight scales are also still in that part of the building.
Station Style and Details
One special feature of the station was a decorative board in one of the roof gables. It had the word "FREIGHT" carved into it. The building's style is called Stick style. This style was popular when the station was built. It shows how the building was used as a train station. The vertical and horizontal wood details on the outside make the building look unique.
History of Milton Station
The area where the station stands was used for travel long ago. Native Americans used it before the first settlers arrived in the 1600s. Dock Road follows a stream down to the river. This made it one of the easiest places to reach the river from inland towns. When the Town of Marlborough was settled around 1710, the station site was an important boundary. Some of the first houses were built nearby. By the end of the 1700s, a dock was built here.
The area grew in the early 1800s. It became a regular stop for steamboats. It was also the eastern end of the Farmer's Turnpike. This road went all the way to the Shawangunk Ridge. A factory that made wheelbarrows was busy at the site. At first, local businesses did not want the West Shore Railroad to build tracks here. The railroad wanted to compete with the New York Central Railroad (NYC). But the railroad won in court in 1882. The station then opened the next year in 1883.
The West Shore Railroad did not succeed in competing with NYC. It went out of business and was bought by NYC in 1885. The new owner made the station bigger. This helped them handle freight shipments more easily. NYC also added a steam heating system to the building.
In the 1950s, people started traveling more by airplane and on new highways. These options became popular instead of trains. The last passenger train stopped at Milton station in 1959. A local winery then bought the station. They used it for wine tastings. They added a steel staircase to the basement. They also removed some walls that separated the offices from the waiting room.
In 1998, the winery sold the building to the town. A group called the Friends of Milton Station started raising money. They want to restore the station to how it looked originally. They plan to use it as a community center. The town is also looking for money from the state and other places to help with the repairs.
