One of the largest Victorian-era train stations in the United States and the second largest train station in Michigan the old train depot in Saginaw is said to be haunted. Known to local residents as the Potter Street Station, the Flint and Pere Marquette Railway Saginaw Depot was constructed and opened in 1881, and was designed by the famous New York Architect Bradford Lee Gilbert. In 1964, the last passenger train departed the Potter Street Station. The rail line would continue to be used for freight until the station was closed in 1986.
There are several sources that claim the station to be haunted, bodies of soldiers who died in the war were shipped back to Saginaw by train to this depot. Richard Froeber was a casket maker in Saginaw and his shop was in the depot and he would build a casket for the fallen soldiers. There have been reports of people seeing a ghostly figure of a woman in white roaming the station.
the Depot was featured in a ghost investigation documentary “A Haunting on Potter Street”
Potter Street Station is owned by the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corporation, a non-profit organization based in Saginaw, MI you can find their website HERE
PLEASE NOTE the station is private property and under video surveillance and anyone trespassing will be prosecuted.
Since I live in Saginaw, and know some people in the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corporation, and have a membership, I was able to take some photos of the inside.
If you are ever in Saginaw, if you look closely you can see it from I-675 to the north and a few blocks east of the Saginaw River. I suggest you drive by it because it’s hard to capture the immense size of the depot in a photo. It truly is a spectacular building, and I hope someday it will be restored.
The fireplace in the women’s waiting room of the train station and yes back then the women and men had separate waiting areas.
The ticket window inside the train station
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