1963 0920 Missouri Pacific Station Demolished

by Jose Cazares

1963 slide image of the MOPac station (Jose Cazares collection)

The End of an Era.

This photograph of the Missouri Pacific passenger station during its last days before it was to be demolished, was taken on September 20, 1963. A year later on October 1964, the old Levee Street station, which served rail patrons in Brownsville for more than half a century, closed. The Missouri Pacific railroad moved its passenger facilities to its 6th Street freight depot, combining its freight, passenger and warehouse facilities at this single site. 

The depot was demolished in 1965 at the request of the Brownsville chamber of commerce and the city. It was a terrible loss, not only did Brownsville lose this beautiful building, it also lost all passenger train service in 1966. The trains which once brought Brownsville out of its isolation and helped the city prosper and grow in 1904, was gone.

The city of Brownsville has remained without passenger train service since 1966, maybe one day passenger train service will once again return......?

“ We were just in time to get a final view of the old R. R. station, and the wrecking operation in the final stages, even before our eyes, as we watched partially from the window of our room at the El Jardin Hotel. Now this old landmark is gone—razed completely to the ground.”
......Wm. Norman Hall
El Jardin Hotel, May 19, 1965.