HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
Cheyenne's 1887 Union Pacific depot, a National Historic Landmark, now a railroad museum with a well-worn ghost tradition.
121 W 15th St, Cheyenne, WY 82001
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Adults $10; seniors/military/AAA $9; ages 13-18 $5; children 12 and under free.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Restored historic depot on paved Depot Plaza; museum galleries on ground level
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1887 · Largest Union Pacific station west of Council Bluffs, Iowa · Richardsonian Romanesque design by Van Brunt & Howe · Last surviving grand station on the original transcontinental route · National Historic Landmark (2006); NRHP-listed (1973)
The Union Pacific Railroad built the Cheyenne Depot in 1886-1887, at the height of the transcontinental line's dominance of the region. Designed by the Boston firm Van Brunt & Howe in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, the sandstone station, with its rounded arches, dual-colored stone, and tall clock tower, was the railroad's largest west of Council Bluffs, Iowa. It anchored the south end of downtown Cheyenne, the 'Magic City of the Plains,' and handled passengers and freight moving through the busy rail yards behind it.
The depot served the Union Pacific for the better part of a century. As passenger rail declined, the building's role shrank, and in the 1990s it was restored and adapted for public use. The Cheyenne Depot Museum, founded in 1993, now occupies the building and interprets the city's early history and the construction of the Union Pacific line.
The depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006 as the last surviving grand railroad station on the original transcontinental route. The museum is open to the public year-round and sits on Depot Plaza, the departure point for the city's seasonal trolley tours.
Sources
The depot and the rail yard behind it carry a long tradition of ghost stories, recounted by US Ghost Adventures, King FM, and Cowboy State Daily. Staff and visitors describe a woman in a long black dress, a male presence said to be a worker who died in a fall from an upper floor decades ago, and an unseen entity blamed for throwing objects in the gift shop. Unexplained noises and laughter are reported at night.
The lore is rooted in real loss. In 1935 Charles Barnard, a Union Pacific division superintendent, was fatally shot in the depot lobby by a former employee, and his name recurs in accounts of the building's hauntings. Cowboy State Daily's history of the site documents earlier deaths as well, including a night watchman killed in the yard in 1910 and Union Pacific watchman Lloyd J. Sparr, who died on duty in 1912. Over the decades a number of workers were killed in accidents in the busy rail yard.
These deaths are treated here as documented history; the paranormal accounts built around them belong to Cheyenne's folklore and to the seasonal trolley ghost tours that make the depot a featured stop.
Notable Entities
Tour the restored 1887 Union Pacific depot, a National Historic Landmark, and its galleries on Cheyenne's early history and the building of the transcontinental railroad. Staff and visitors have long reported unexplained activity in the depot and its gift shop.
The depot is a marquee stop on Cheyenne's seasonal trolley ghost tour, an approximately 70-minute ride through the city's ghost lore. Tours depart from Depot Plaza in the fall.
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This Cheyenne tour includes Cheyenne Depot Museum on its route.
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