Caliente Depot

The train depot in Caliente, Nevada, is one of the finest examples of Spanish Mission Revival architecture in the Great Basin. The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, later part of the Union Pacific, built it in nineteen twenty-three to replace an earlier wooden structure, and it was designed to anchor the small railroad town in the Meadow Valley Wash. At a time when rail travel was at its peak, Caliente was a division point where crews changed and locomotives took on water and coal.

The depot's arcaded facade, red-tile roof, and whitewashed walls were intended to evoke the California missions along the original Southern Pacific route. Today the building has been repurposed as the Caliente City Hall and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, one of the best-preserved railroad depots along the old Salt Lake Route.