page_title: The Station (New Paltz restaurant)
section_title: Opening and early operation
hierarchical_section_title: The Station (New Paltz restaurant) / Opening and early operation
caption_attribution_description: English: Scan of a 5.25 x 3.5 stereoscope of the original railroad station in New Paltz, New York. The New Paltz Normal School, which burned down in 1906, is visible behind the station. The station pictured has a gabled roof; after it was rebuilt following a 1907 fire, the roof was hipped. (Edited from original)
context_page_description: The Station is an Italian restaurant and former train station in the village of New Paltz in Ulster County, New York. The building was the first of two railroad stations constructed in the town of New Paltz, and it is the only former Wallkill Valley Railroad station standing at its original location.
  After a lengthy public debate over whether to place the station to the east or west of the Wallkill River, it was built in 1870 on the east bank, within the village of New Paltz. The rail line was formally opened during a large ceremony on December 20, 1870. A decade later the station had become a popular departure point for the Mohonk Mountain House by many vacationers, including two U.S. presidents. In the late 19th century, over a dozen stagecoaches ran between the station and Mohonk daily.
  The station burned down in 1907 and was rebuilt later that year. The rise of the automobile caused the railroad to end passenger service in 1937; by 1959 the station was completely closed and sold off. After closure, it was used for a variety of businesses, including serving as a public-access television station.
context_section_description: The rail line was officially opened in New Paltz on December 20, 1870, during a day-long celebration. At that time, the Wallkill Valley line was connected to the Erie Railroad's Montgomery–Goshen branch to the south; an inaugural train containing about 350 passengers ran to Goshen, making stops at each station along the way, before heading back to New Paltz. The station's telegraph was used to "receive ... election returns" throughout the 1870s.
  On March 3, 1880, four men robbed the station's safe. They broke into the depot late at night and dragged the safe to the center of the station. They then attempted to drill holes into the safe and explode it with gunpowder, but failing that, cut off one of its sides. The contents of the safe were 300 cigars and a few bills and papers. After the suspects were arrested in Poughkeepsie, the local sheriff was reluctant to transfer the suspects to New Paltz. The Poughkeepsie police were insistent that they be paid immediately for their services. The day after their arrest, the men were allowed to go to a barber shop for a shave; some witnesses were unable to identify the suspects because of this, and the officers were publicly chided for incompetence. Cigars in the suspects' pockets were identical to the cigars in the safe, and along with tools recovered from the site, they were used to identify the men. The suspects were brought to a jail in Kingston pending the ruling of a grand jury that April. A large crowd gathered at the New Paltz depot to watch them depart. The men were described as "cracksmen of the first water", possibly "stylish", and so proficient at safe-cracking that, "if they [had] any chance at all, or [got] hold of any weapon, they [would] pick their way thro' the jail as easily as boring through a lime heap". The men were subsequently convicted. As a result of the burglary, station agent Dwight Marsh was given a revolver, and it became policy not to keep valuables in the safe overnight. On December 8, 1880, another thief broke a window at the depot and stole a box of cigars.
  Two sheds had been built adjacent to the station by 1881. The land the sheds were built on was purchased the previous year by Mohonk Mountain House co-founder Albert Smiley for $500. The sheds were built for the resort's horses. During this period, as many as 14 stagecoaches each day transported guests between the station and Mohonk. The West Shore Railroad purchased the Wallkill Valley line in June 1881, and placed an additional siding by the depot in 1887 to allow daily "special extra-fare trains ... for the Minnewaska and Mohonk visitors".
  President Chester A. Arthur visited the station with his daughter in 1884. He was welcomed by the railroad's director and brought to Lake Mohonk. President Rutherford B. Hayes occasionally attended conferences at the Mohonk Mountain House. In 1892, several townspeople held a reception for him at the station, giving him "three rousing cheers". Other notable Mountain House guests who arrived by train were opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink and orator William Jennings Bryan. A sewage line was installed from the station to the Wallkill River in 1905.
caption: The station as it appeared when it was originally built
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