The Contoocook Railroad Depot is located in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, United States, in the village of Contoocook. The depot was completed in 1849 as one of the first substantial railroad passenger stations west of Concord on the Concord and Claremont Railroad. The building is one of the best preserved of a small number of gable-roofed railroad stations surviving from the first decade of rail development in New Hampshire. The station exemplifies the pioneering period of rail development in the state.
It is one of the earliest and least altered depots of the 1850 period in New Hampshire. Displaying the Greek Revival style, with modifications that proclaim its identity as a new building type, the depot is an important artifact in the history and evolution of railroad architecture in New Hampshire.
Architectural significance
Because the Concord and Claremont Railroad remained a small and under-capitalized short line, with minimal investment, the Contoocook Depot has survived as one of a very small group of comparable structures. Other comparable depots on the Concord and Claremont line, and on its sister Contoocook Valley Railroad, have disappeared. Very similar stations once stood at West Concord and Bradford, but no longer exist. The Contoocook Valley Railroad, built at the same time as the Concord and Claremont by the same builder, Joseph Barnard (and joining the latter just west of the Contoocook Depot), once had nearly identical depots. The destroyed station at Hillsborough Bridge in Hillsborough, the original terminus of the Contoocook Valley Railroad, was a virtual twin to the Contoocook Depot. Like the Contoocook and Warner buildings, it measured twenty-four by fifty feet.
Transportation significance
Throughout the period from 1849 to 1960, the Contoocook Depot was the commercial hub of Contoocook Village. The building not only served as the point of arrival and departure for travelers to and from the village, but also offered other forms of communication. The railway mail was delivered here, and for some years the depot served as the Contoocook Post Office. The depot was connected to the remainder of the consolidated Boston and Maine system by the railway telegraph, and also served the public as the local public telegraph office from 1866. The depot was connected to the Western Union system during the early twentieth century. When the first telephone connections were installed in Contoocook Village in 1884, one of two telephone offices was at the depot, with Amos H. Currier as agent.
At first, rail connections from Contoocook largely focused on Concord. Travelers going east from Contoocook were able to connect to the Concord Railroad, thereby gaining rail access to Manchester, Nashua, Lowell, and Boston; or to the Northern Railroad, providing access to all towns on the route from Concord to West Lebanon on the Connecticut River and to White River Junction, Vermont; or to the Boston, Concord, and Montreal Railroad, thereby gaining access to Woodsville on the Connecticut River and to Wells River, Vermont.
Trains traveling northwesterly on the Concord and Claremont Railroad's own tracks were limited at first by the tracks' termination in Bradford, which was reached in July 1850. Not until the Newbury Cut was completed in 1871 were trains at last able to travel to Newport and finally, in 1872, to make contact with the Connecticut River at Claremont on the railroad's own tracks. Similarly, the Contoocook Valley Railroad, which connected with the Concord and Claremont in Contoocook, was initially completed only as far south as Hillsborough Bridge in Hillsborough.