Union Pacific passenger and freight station, Nyassa, Oregon [Original watercolour architectural elevation rendering of the proposed famed stationary streamliner brick clad Art Deco depot designed by

Item Details

[Omaha, NE] & Nyassa, OR]:, Union Pacific [System Engineering Department],, [1940]., N/A

N/A, VG

Oblong folio. 24 x 14.5 in. original watercolour painting elevation rendering, w/ image itself sized 20.5 x 11.25 in., retaining original matte board framing painting, and backing board, sized 26 x 18 in., w/ H.P. Whitmore Fine Arts label mounted on verso (some age toning to matte board framing, minor bumping, faint tidemark at upper fore-edge on verso), still a VG bright original painting.

This original architectural artist’s rendering of the Moderne Streamline style Union Pacific RR Depot Station was intended prior to World War II to serve as a model for modernizing and updating depots across the system in the West. Nyssa, OR was located in the NE corner of Malheur County 10 miles south of Ontario, OR, and 43 miles NW of Boise, ID was a fast-growing agricultural community in the 1930’s on the UP System lines, resulting from the completion of the Owyhee River irrigation project and dams fueled through the Great Depression by New Deal programs. By 1937, the former Oregon Short Line Union Pacific station was considered woefully inadequate, and the community was pushing for upgrades, and an underpass near the line. In 1940, Hynes of the UPRR announced they were opening competing bids; Contractor H.E. Shraven of Salt Lake City was awarded the contract, and by August, 1941 the depot was completed, and opened in late 1941 for passenger rail service until the mid 1960’s, and fell out of use once Amtrak had taken over passenger operations, and also ceased freight as well by 1971. A 73-foot-long addition was constructed and added to the South End, here in this painting depicted as a tree which was used for freight and storage. Sadly, even though Nyssa has applied for National Historical Register status, the building is now largely used as a storage warehouse by the present owners, with UPRR tracks nearby. See: Nyassa, Oregon, Depot, The Streamliner, Vol. 24, No. 4, Fall 2010; Adam S. Alsobrook, The Stationery Streamliner: The Union Pacific Depot at Nyssa, Oregon, Jan. 26, 2021.