Central Delta Depot Museum

fter sitting abandoned for a number of years, the historic Union Station in Brinkley, Arkansas, has been restored and is operated as the Central Delta Depot Museum, a local history museum run by the Central Delta Historical Society. The Union Station was constructed in 1912 as a joint depot to be utilized by all railroads passing through Brinkley. Cotton Belt passenger train service through town ended in 1959, and the last Rock Island passenger train stopped at the station in late 1967. Rock Island trackage west from Brinkley to near Little Rock was abandoned and dismantled in the mid-1980s. Named passenger trains through Brinkley included the Choctaw Rocket, the Lone Star, and the Morning Star. The former Cotton Belt trackage is now a part of the Union Pacific system. The station and nearby railroad hotel are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Lick Skillet Railroad Work Station Historic District and Rusher Hotel. The museum grounds include a wooden train depot originally located in Monroe, Arkansas, a restored sharecropper’s house, and a Southern Pacific bay window caboose.