Bartlett museum packed with memories

Built in 1873, the Bartlett train station was where farmers shipped cattle and dairy products.

Later, the trains primarily carried people to their jobs.

But from now on, the old depot, which closed in 2007, will traffic only in memories.

On Sunday, the station at 100 W. Railroad Ave. was formally dedicated as the Bartlett Depot Museum.

It was in many ways a homecoming for people who attended the ribbon cutting and viewed the museum for the first time.

Bartlett resident Pamela Zarcone, who visited with her husband Joe, said her father-in-law used to bring her son to the old depot and watch the trains go by.

"My son would sit up on top of the newspaper boxes, and my father-in-law would hold onto him, so when the wind went rushing by, he wouldn't be blown off the paper box."

Former Bartlett resident Ralph Andreasen, now of Rockford, remembers hanging out as a child in the 1930s with depot agent Joe Charneskey. He remembers how Joe would hang out the mail for the trains to pick up, as well as cart the mail across the street to the general store and post office for sorting.

Another guest was Jon Charneskey, whose father Joseph was depot agent from 1928 into the late 1950s.

"He was an expert on telegraph. He knew the Morse code. Now it's a lost art, but he knew it. We lived right down the street, three blocks. In the early '50s, these trains were powered by coal. And the guy would stoke the engine, and the coal would drop off by our house, and we would pick it up and heat our house with it."

Bartlett Historical Society President Gary Plice, who showed up for the ceremony in a period costume that included a top hat and bow tie, said Luther Bartlett originally donated the land and the right of way to the Chicago & Pacific Railroad.

He said the town grew up around the railroad. "Without this (depot) there wouldn't be any town of Bartlett. We're not on a major highway. We're not on a river. We're on a railroad."

Plice's son Colin, also dressed in period costume, said, "It's great to have some history still being preserved here."

Pam Rohleder, the museum's director, thanked everyone involved in the depot restoration.

"It's not a one-person effort," she said.

George Brennan, a former village employee, helped create the new sign adorning the museum - a replication of the original sign, consisting of the word Bartlett, with a period after it. Rohleder said an explanation for the "dot" may be that the depot was a telegraphing station.

Allen Hutchins, the great-great-grandson of the first depot agent, Oliver Hutchins, was on hand with his wife Darlene. "(Oliver) was also Luther and Sophia Bartlett's son-in-law. Hmm, I wonder if that's how he got the job," Rohleder said.

South Elgin resident Sheila Putyrski, the very last depot agent, now works at the new Bartlett Metra station. She reminisced about how the old station had turned into something of an animal sanctuary. She said mice would invade through the aluminum siding and land on her desk. She said birds would get trapped in the attic or fall between the boards into the bathroom. One time, she rescued one from the toilet. When she placed it in a paper towel to warm it up, it wrapped its claws around her finger. She still had it attached to her finger when she stamped a ticket for a customer.

Inside the new museum is a wealth of memorabilia, including photographs, a piece of the original wall, the original ticket window and such period items as a directory of DuPage County farmers from 1918 and an enamel coffee pot used to serve threshing teams.

Rohleder said the museum's exterior has been restored to its original appearance and repainted according to a color scheme based on samples of the original surface.

She said the village outgrew the depot decades ago, with talk even in the '60s and '70s about what to do with it. "We're the second busiest train station today on the Milwaukee West Line," she said.

Assistant Village Administrator Paula Schumacher said the $480,000 project was funded with $435,000 in grant money from the state, with the remainder coming from a tax increment financing district.