The Salt Lake City Union Pacific Depot is a building on the western edge of

downtown Salt Lake City Downtown (also called City Center) is the oldest district in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The grid plan, grid from which the entire city is laid out originates at Temple Square, the location of the Salt Lake Temple. Location Downtown S ...

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. Built in 1908–09, it dates back to the more prosperous era in the history of American railroad travel. As Salt Lake Union Pacific Railroad Station, it is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. In 2024 it was repurposed as a hotel, Asher Adams, Autograph Collection, with the historic structure containing the hotel's lobby, restaurants, function rooms, and 13 luxury suites and a new building behind it containing 225 hotel rooms.https://www.hospitalitynet.org/announcement/41011654/asher-adams-autograph-collection.html

History

Originally called the Union Station, it was jointly constructed by the

San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company in California, Nevada, and Utah in the United States, that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities (Salt Lake City, Utah, and Los Angeles, California), via Las ...

and the

Oregon Short Line The Oregon Short Line Railroad was a railroad in Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Oregon in the United States. The line was organized as the Oregon Short Line Railway in 1881 as a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railway. The Union Pacific int ...

, both later wholly owned by the

Union Pacific The Union Pacific Railroad is a Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United States after BNSF, ...

, at an estimated cost of $450,000 ($ in dollars). The platforms behind the station ran north-to-south, parallel to the first main line built in the Salt Lake Valley, which predated the station building. South of 1300 South this is the route used by the UTA TRAX Blue Line and Salt Lake City Southern, while north of North Temple (100 North) it is used by the ''

FrontRunner ''FrontRunner'' is a Commuter rail in North America, commuter railway operated by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) that runs along the Wasatch Front in north-central Utah with service from Ogden Central station in central Weber County, Utah, ...

'' line and Union Pacific. Trains from the west used a line south of 900 South in Glendale to approach the north-to-south platforms. The Bamberger Railroad &

Salt Lake and Utah Railroad The Salt Lake and Utah Railroad, also known as the Orem Line or Orem Interurban, was an electric railroad which operated between downtown Salt Lake City and Payson, Utah, United States. Construction of the main line was started in 1913 with fin ...

Interurban The interurban (or radial railway in Canada) is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms u ...

lines also stopped at their own station nearby. When

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

was formed in 1971, it took over the remaining passenger services at the station, but after

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...

joined Amtrak all trains were moved to its station three blocks south.

Amtrak

From 1977 to 1986 the depot served as Salt Lake City's

station, but was then replaced by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Depot. It was served by the ''

Desert Wind The ''Desert Wind'' was an Amtrak long-distance passenger train that ran from 1979 to 1997. It operated from Chicago to Los Angeles as a section of the ''California Zephyr'', serving Los Angeles via Salt Lake City; Ogden, Utah; and Las Vegas ...

'', and ''

Pioneer Pioneer commonly refers to a person who is among the first at something that is new to a community. A pioneer as a settler is among the first settling at a place that is new to the settler community. A historic example are American pioneers, perso ...

'' trains, both of which were discontinued in 1997; until its route was reconfigured in 1983, this station served as the ''Pioneers terminus. The ''Desert Wind'' ran daily from Chicago to

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and the ''Pioneer'' ran daily Chicago to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

. In 1999 Amtrak moved to the

Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub The Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub, also called Salt Lake Central station by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA), is a multi-modal transportation hub in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States served by the Blue Line of UTA's TRAX light rail system ...

Current

The main lobby, no longer used by

(which has relocated to the Rio Grande Depot and later the

), serves as an entrance to The Gateway development. Most of the building is not used for its original purpose, but Union Pacific uses some of the space for offices and training areas. In January 2006, three floors opened as a restaurant and music venue, known as The Depot. In 2024 it was repurposed as a hotel, Asher Adams, Autograph Collection, with the historic structure containing the hotel's lobby, restaurants, function rooms, and 13 luxury suites and a new building behind it containing 225 hotel rooms. The hotel is after cartographers John R. Asher and George H. Adams, who were the first to depict railroad routes.

Architecture

According to ''The Railway Gazette'' (1907) the structure's plans came from the office of J.H. Wallace, Assistant Chief Engineer of the Southern Pacific, under the direction of D.J. Patterson, Architect for that company. It served the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake and the Oregon Short Line when it was completed in 1909 and became wholly owned by Union Pacific in the 1920s. Initially, both railroads' initials were prominently displayed on the front of the building, but the "Union Pacific" shield or related logo has graced the depot for most of its history. Union-pacific-passenger-terminal-salt-lake-city-utah-usa

Union-pacific-passenger-terminal-salt-lake-city-utah-usa

The sandstone building is in French Second Empire style, and includes a terrazzo floor and stained glass windows. One ceiling

mural A mural is any piece of Graphic arts, graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage. Word mural in art The word ''mural'' ...

“Driving The Golden Spike” by

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

artist John MacQuarrie in 1909, depicts the driving of the Golden Spike north of Salt Lake City at "Promontory Summit" signifying the completion of the

first transcontinental railroad America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad), Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the exis ...

in 1869. Another mural, “Emigrants Entering Salt Lake Valley,” by San Francisco artists John MacQuarrie & August C. Wocker in 1909, shows the 1847 arrival of

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

pioneers to what is now Salt Lake City. Several side rooms were originally used for separate male and female waiting areas. The depot once housed an emergency hospital, lunch room, baggage rooms, and offices for both of the original railroads. Most of these features are gone now, but the building was extensively renovated in the 1970s to repair damage. Additionally, the original

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof was replaced by

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

plates due to leaking problems.

References

External links

Asher Adams Hotel official website

The Depot: now a hip Salt Lake City concert venue

* {{Registered Historic Places Former railway stations in Salt Lake City Railway stations on the National Register of Historic Places in Utah Union stations in the United States Former Union Pacific Railroad stations Buildings and structures in Salt Lake City Former Amtrak stations in Utah Railway stations in the United States opened in 1909 Historic American Buildings Survey in Utah 1909 establishments in Utah National Register of Historic Places in Salt Lake City Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Oregon Short Line Railroad Railway stations in the United States closed in 1986