Choctaw Freight Depot
The Choctaw Freight Depot was a companion structure to the Choctaw Railway Station on the grounds of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park. The Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad operated the freight depot. The depot was constructed by Charles W. Clark of the Clark Pressed Brick Company in Malvern, and opened to deliveries on April 9, 1900. The depot measured 40 feet by 215 feet in length and had an attached 15 foot platform for loading goods into wagons and trucks. The freight depot was separated from the passenger station by several sets of tracks.
The Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf soon found itself party to a hostile takeover, and in 1904 the freight warehouse along with the company became part of the Rock Island Railroad. In 1911 the depot was abandoned by the railroad in favor of a larger facility at the corner of East Fourth & Rector. The depot was leased in 1913 to Reaves Transfer Company, to Fisher Cement & Roofing Company in 1939, and again to May Supply Company in 1944. The Mayco Warehouse Company (as May Supply was then known) purchased the structure outright in 1961. The freight depot spent its last forty years entombed within a number of surrounding May Supply warehouses.
The depot was razed by the Clinton Foundation on November 21, 2001, despite a three-month effort to save the historic structure led by the Friends of the Choctaw Terminal. Friends of the Choctaw Terminal complained that the Clinton Foundation and City of Little Rock had failed to fully comply with the spirit of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966, which specifies a full site review where historic structures are adversely affected by projects funded with federal dollars.
