The Railroad Depot: Dubuque, Iowa, 1940
John Vachon photographed Dubuque’s railroad depot in April 1940, when the depot was still the front door of every river town.
This was where the drummers arrived, the soldiers left, the mail came in, and half the town seemed to have a reason to be on the platform. Arrivals and departures were public events, and the depot was where a town met the wider world.
For a Mississippi River town like Dubuque, the railroad and the river ran the whole show — and the depot was the railroad’s front room, photographed here in the spring of 1940.
Source: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USF33-001775-M3
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