Congressman and a federal Election Commission member. Watch the communicators monday on cspan 2. Are cspan cities tour continues with a stop at the santa fe depot. Take a look at some of the unique features of the santa fe depot. A key component of the development of amarillo was its tie to industry and agriculture being shipped out. The railroad was a big part of that. We are here to document the unique features when they built this facility. Right now we are in the baggage room. A lot of the original stuff is still here. Original construction, none of that has changed. This would have been the passenger and Light Commercial freight area. Anythingenger freight, you are traveling with would come across here and be weighed just like what you have on the airplanes today. Your commercial freight would be done on the scales up top. One of the cool things you will notice as we go through the building is the construction of this building. This was billed by railroad engineers, built to last. This building right now is over 100 years old. As we go through the building, keep in mind, this is a room that is unique. It is important to our history. This room would have been called the colored only room. This is where segregation took place. It has been converted to a room that people use for weddings and stuff like that, but it is an important part of our history and we want to make sure we keep it noted. The other thing to note and you will see above, there was of course no air conditioning and heating and cooling back in the day. Windows are still in place throughout the Railroad Facility through the depot. This was basically the cooling. When you wanted cooling in the summertime, these windows were opened up. Here,e come down through we will step back out where you actually boarded the plane boarded trains from this location. There has been an adaptation, originally, these were all open. They were never enclosed. The ticketmaster would stay here. The porter would stay here. Yourwas where you got ticket punched ticket on the trains. You will notice the train tracks are higher now. They were three feet when the depot was built. A lot of that has changed because of the weight of the trains and what is required for the trains. If this was to turn back into passenger space, it could easily be converted with an elevated deck. If amtrak was ever to come through amarillo, this is where it would be. Back, one of the cool features of our depot as we still have the original ticket counters. This is where you would buy a ticket. We still have the sound system that was original to the railroad. Some of the artifacts that were unique to amarillo we still have. Conductors jackets, conductors caps. All of that equipment. We do not store it inside the depot. We store it in a safe place. A lot of the historical elements are still in place, still here in amarillo. I would like for you to come in behind and take a look at the ticket counters. These are original to the depot, too. One of the unique things, anybody who has done retail can identify with what we are fixing to look at. When was the last time you saw change drawers you actually had the wood hollowed out where you could slide your change in and out, all the denominations and the dollar bills . All of that is original. Early 1900s. We have all of these would have been where they kept the logs. If you are taking a train to albuquerque, new mexico, wherever, this is where they kept the tickets to move you through the system. All original. The fact you see it moving and operating so easily is a testament to the construction of the time and period. What we have here is critical to a lot of people that dealt with the railroad. The first mural was actually chicago. When you see the age of the vehicles, you understand when this was taken. Chicago was the hub, the starting point for a lot of rail lines. Santa fe had a presence there. They came down through the planes across texas, new mexico, then you see the grand canyon. They would end up in San Francisco at napa valley. The murals give you a depiction of the way you moved by train across the western half of the United States. Area,e come into this this was what was classified as the grand ballroom. If you think about the period, your beef buyers from chicago would come down here to make deals with ranchers in texas. Is easy to visualize how important this was. This would have been for Big Community civic functions. The depot was the biggest and most prominent structure in the city of amarillo at the time it was built. What we have here is the. Riginal Santa Fe Door this was located on the other set of building and moved over its importance to us and for this specific part of here. Goldleaf and an original Santa Fe Railway door. That is the reason you see paper behind it. We are protecting all of that. Hadhis room you could have ranchers coming to meet with brokers to sell beef to the rest of the United States out of this room. Is one of the unique depots because as part of the depot itself. Upstairs, we will take a look at the hotel. As we come up into the house, understand, it was a highend hotel in its day. This would have been the coat room. He would have been received here. They wouldve checked your coat. Then you would have checked into the hotel itself. This was the dining area. This was a fullservice restaurant. There would have been tables and chairs here. Girls actually were not allowed to mingle with the guests. Have a separate entrance into their area so they did not have to come through the station. They had their own dormitories back here. This would have been the private to work here and live here. A lot of those girls signed a contract with harvey, lived on state owned premises. Some of them for many years. There was a high set of standards. You absolutely could not fraternize with customers. They kept them segregated for a lot of reasons. Have been the restroom facilities. As you came down the hallway, all of the girls had to come down here to use the restroom. We will show you a quick look at one of the dormitory rooms. This room could have held between six to eight girls. We have the windows to move air across the room here. They had steam heat, but no air conditioning. You can imagine one of the other interesting things is the reason you know this is a dormitory is this is what is considered a large closet in the day. It is a walk in, but it is not much size. The girls would have had a view outside their dormitory. From the restaurant they could see the real tracks. They knew when the trains were coming. As we walked down here we start looking at hotel rooms. You are going to notice that the hotel rooms im going to ask you to envision back in the early 1900s, not many cars around here. Wagons lot of horses and. The prominence of this structure in that time period is undeniable. It truly is. This would have been one of the first hotel rooms you could get. As you can tell, its not very big. But it serves its purpose. If you were traveling across country and he wanted a one night stay, here is where you would have stopped. Keep in mind, there were big deals being made in amarillo. You are talking about somebody buying beef thats going to be those guys doing that are wealthy. They are not going to take her room take a room like this. They are going to step into a suite. Suite. Uld have been a it connected these two rooms. , there was not really much of a downtown amarillo. You could see all of amarillo to the east. We want to keep our history. It is an important art of who we are. We envision redeveloping the spot back to its original look. We could have a bedandbreakfast in the harvey hotel. We talking trains, we are talking rude 66. We still get a lot of that traffic coming through amarillo. One of the key features, people want to see it when they drive it. It is such an important part of the history of not only amarillo , but the United States development of the west