MUSEUMS
half mile of the trip but giving onlookers
30
a chance to take pictures and
inspect the building.
The Steam Locomotive Association
plans to restore the station and turn it
into a museum that will become part
of the railroad museum they opened a
year ago at 1401 N. 2nd St.
The same group has been restoring
a 1924 steam locomotive and other
railroad cars, including a caboose. The
108-ton steam locomotive is the only one
of its type still operating in the United
States today. The association hopes it will
receive a national historic designation.
About 40 people surrounded the old
station on Avenue H before it crossed
the tracks over to North Second Street.
Pam Gillette, who works for Main
Street of Fort Pierce, says she drove
over to take some photos and see the
depot heading for its new home.
“I think people will definitely come
to see the old depot after it becomes a
museum,” she says. “And anything that
brings people into the downtown Fort Pierce area is good.”
The depot, built in 1916, sat in an old grove in Vero Beach
after it was decommissioned by the Florida East Coast Railway
The inside of the old Sebastian depot had unfinished walls and high ceilings. Overhead, you can see
a raised garage-style door that was added to the station so that grove equipment could be driven in
and out during the years it sat in an old grove.
about 1965. It was used for grove equipment storage,
and doors had been hung on one end so machinery could be
moved in and out.
ED DRONDOSKI
It was no longer a complete station. The passenger section
— about a third of the building — had been cut off, moved
elsewhere and eventually burned. What was left was the
freight section of the structure.
After the move was completed, the association’s members
said they planned to get busy on restoration. The white and
gray paint is peeling and will be replaced by yellow, its color >>