Throwback Thursday: Thirty years later, lighting up the L&N Depot

One Bowling Green landmark is celebrating a 30-year anniversary in 2023. The
Historic RailPark and Train Museum plans to commemorate when Operation
P.R.I.D.E. first lit the depot in 1993, as revitalization efforts first began to preserve
and redevelop the old L&N Depot in Downtown Bowling Green.

The L&N Depot has been part of Bowling Green and southern Kentucky’s history
since the railroad’s construction in the 1850s. The depot was burned to the ground
during the Civil War, was rebuilt as the current structure in the mid-1920s, and kept
passenger service active thru the 1970s. But the depot fell into a state of disrepair
over the following couple of decades.

Operation P.R.I.D.E. partnered with the City and County in the early 1990s to save
the depot. In 1993, when the community came together to start the process, only
half of the depot’s exterior lights even came on. There was plenty of work to be
done.

Now, the Historic RailPark and Train Museum operates as a nonprofit
attraction, local event venue, office space, and a true community gem.

The Railpark’s 2023 marketing and fundraising campaign is “Light up the Depot.”
In 1993, Operation P.R.I.D.E. paid $105 thousand dollars for the building, and this year,
the depot hopes to raise that much money to continue repairs and preservation
efforts.

On November 30, just before the Polar Express Storytime event begins and a
day before Downtown BGKY Lights Up at Fountain and Circus Squares and SKyPAC.

The depot exterior and railcars will be decorated in holiday lighting, capturing as
much charm of the historic lighting as possible.

That’s it for this week, brought to you by Hart County Tourism and the Kentucky
Museum. In Bowling Green, because local matters, Telia Butler, WNKY News 40.