Toppenish Depot: Fifty Years of Service, Thirty Years of Rescue

The Northern Pacific Railway built this depot in Toppenish in nineteen eleven, and for fifty years it served as the transportation hub of the Yakima Valley, the point where passengers and freight connected with the wider world. Passenger service ended in nineteen sixty-one as cars and planes took over. By nineteen eighty-one the building was boarded up.

In nineteen eighty-nine, a group of rail enthusiasts approached the city and Burlington Northern about saving the structure. They formed the Yakima Valley Rail and Steam Museum Association, leased the building in nineteen ninety, and spent years stripping old paint from oak trim and rewiring the electrical systems by hand. The museum opened on July fourth, nineteen ninety-two, and a year later the group purchased the depot and adjacent freight house outright. Now known as the Northern Pacific Railway Museum, the restored station holds rolling stock, artifacts, and the records of the line that made this valley accessible to the outside world.