1930 Renaissance Revival station built across the Arkansas-Texas state line; railroad workers have reported a headless woman in blue on the platform, and the building has been linked to the 1892 lynching of Ed Coy and the 1907 death of Will Driver.
100 E Front St, Texarkana, TX 75503
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Active Amtrak station; free to enter the waiting area. Amtrak Texas Eagle stops here.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Active rail station with paved platform access.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1930 · National Register of Historic Places (1978) · Renaissance Revival Architecture · Congressional State-Line Mandate (1876) · Multi-Railroad Joint Operations · Filming Location — The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
Congress mandated in 1876 that Texarkana's union station be built to straddle the Arkansas-Texas state line, a provision that shaped the building's unusual site. Construction on the current structure began in 1928 under architect E. M. Tucker of Missouri Pacific, who drew on his earlier experience rebuilding Little Rock Union Depot after a 1921 fire. A. B. Butterworth collaborated on the design, which produced a 44,000-square-foot Renaissance Revival building with three large arched windows flanked by decorative columns on the north facade.
The station opened for business April 17, 1930, with a formal dedication on May 12, 1930. It was built and operated by Union Station Trust, a joint entity created by the Missouri-Pacific, Texas and Pacific, Cotton Belt, and Kansas City Southern railroads. Original plans included a full restaurant, but Depression-era revenue constraints limited the facility to a snack bar.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 19, 1978. It served as a filming location for the 1976 horror film The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which dramatized the unsolved Texarkana Moonlight Murders of 1946. Today the station operates as the second busiest Amtrak station in Arkansas, serving the Texas Eagle route.
Sources
The most-cited paranormal report at Texarkana Union Station involves a headless woman in a blue dress standing on the platform. Railroad workers are the primary sources for this account, which has circulated in Texarkana's ghost-tour community for decades. The apparition is associated with the platform area rather than the building's interior, and it appears without clear historical attribution to a specific individual.
The building's surroundings carry heavier documented history. Edward Coy, a 32-year-old man accused of assaulting a white woman named Julia Jewell, was captured by a mob of approximately 1,000 people near the Texarkana railyard on February 20, 1892, tied to a post, and burned alive. Julia Jewell personally participated in the burning. Later civil rights investigation suggested the accusation may have been fabricated under family pressure. Historical accounts place the actual site of Coy's death closer to the current Police Department location than to the station itself, though regional ghost-tour tradition has conflated the general railroad district with the station.
A 2014 paranormal investigation at the station recorded EVP including what investigators transcribed as 'tickets please' and 'you are so cheap.' The station is a stop on the Haunted Texarkana Ghost Walk Route A.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
The Haunted Texarkana Ghost Walk includes Union Station as a stop on its Route A tour. The building's exterior and platform areas — where a headless woman in blue has been reported by railroad workers — are accessible to the public. The station is also the filming location for the 1976 film The Town That Dreaded Sundown.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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