Old Santa Fe Depot (Guthrie Station)

The Guthrie Santa Fe Depot at 403 West Oklahoma Avenue was constructed in 1903 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. It sits in the heart of a city that was Oklahoma Territory's first capital — a status Guthrie held from the 1889 Land Run until Oklahoma City assumed it in 1910. The red-brick structure was designed to serve a rapidly growing territorial capital, and at its peak the station saw as many as 40 trains per day, making it one of the busiest rail stops in the region.

The depot operated through Oklahoma statehood and into the mid-twentieth century, handling both passenger service and freight. It closed in 1979 as rail passenger traffic declined nationally. In 1998 the building's northern wing, which once housed the Harvey House restaurant, was restored and reopened as a restaurant and event space, a use it retains today. Wikipedia's entry on Guthrie Station documents the structure's history and its role in the Santa Fe Railway's Oklahoma network.

The surrounding block is part of Guthrie's National Historic Landmark district, which encompasses one of the most complete ensembles of late-Victorian commercial architecture in the United States. The depot's red-brick construction and its relationship to the Harvey House restaurant network — which served rail travelers across the Santa Fe system — give it particular historical significance among Oklahoma's railroad-era buildings.

The building was listed in multiple sources documenting Guthrie's preserved Victorian-era institutions, and local historians note that it represents the last major railroad terminal built for Guthrie during its period as the territorial center of commerce.