The Oregon Short Line Railroad Depot is a former railway station

Train station

A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...

 located in Ontario

Ontario, Oregon

Ontario is the largest city in Malheur County, Oregon, United States. It lies along the Snake River at the Idaho border. The population was 10,985 at the 2000 census, with an estimated population of 11,245 in 2006...

, Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

, listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

. It was constructed in 1907 by the Union Pacific Railroad

Union Pacific Railroad

The Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....

 (UP) for its subsidiary

Subsidiary

A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...

, the Oregon Short Line Railroad

Oregon Short Line Railroad

The Oregon Short Line Railroad was a railroad in the U.S. states of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Montana and Oregon. The line was as organized the Oregon Short Line Railway in 1881 as a subsidiary of Union Pacific Railway. Union Pacific intended the line to be the shortest route from Wyoming to Oregon...

 (OSL), to replace an 1885 OSL depot that had been located just to the south and had been a simple wood-frame structure. The building is made of concrete

Concrete

Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...

 block cast to imitate stone, and with red brick trim and other ornamental features. The City of Ontario purchased the building from UP in 1996, but as of 1999 the land remained owned by UP and was being leased to the city. The station was added to the NRHP in 1999.

During the station's active years, campaigning politicians sometimes made whistle-stops

Whistle stop train tour

A whistle stop or whistle-stop tour is a style of political campaigning where the politician makes a series of brief appearances or speeches at a number of small towns over a short period of time...

 at the station to give speeches, among them being Harry Truman

Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

 and Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon

Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...

. Senator Robert F. Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy

Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy , also referred to by his initials RFK, was an American politician, a Democratic senator from New York, and a noted civil rights activist. An icon of modern American liberalism and member of the Kennedy family, he was a younger brother of President John F...

passed through just four days before his death.