The Durant Depot, built between 1902 and 1914, served many passenger and freight trains on the north and south Illinois Central Railroad and on the branch lines east to Aberdeen and west to Gwin Junction on the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley route. The first photo shows how the Durant Depot looked in the 1980’s. Next, the current sad condition of the building is apparent. Windows are boarded, timbers sag, appliances are rusting, and the pigeon traffic runs through holes beneath the rafters. Durant officials and concerned citizens hope Canadian National Railroad will repair and refurbish the building.

TRAINMASTER WRITES ABOUT DURANT EMPLOYEES

Illinois Central Magazine, December, 1926

Trainmaster W. H. Petty wrote in 1926 about Durant history and local railroad people and stories. “Durant has a population of 1,870, among whom are numbered 200 Illinois Central System employees, representing with their dependent families 600 persons, or one third of the town’s population. Of these 200 employees, eighty-seven own and reside in their own homes.

"J. H. Lockhart and his sister, Mrs. C. A. Shines, both residing within the corporate limits of Durant, were living with their parents, Thomas Lockhart and Mrs. Minerva West Lockhart, in what is now the northern section of the town, before it was named. This was back in the days before the Civil War, when the Miss. Central Railroad, now the Illinois Central, was built.”

“The civil engineers and contractors were boarding in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Lockhart, and at dinner one day the matter of naming the station and outlining the town was mentioned. The contractors wanted to call it Lockhart, but objections were made on account of another town of the same name in the eastern part of the state. Mrs. Lockhart said, ‘I will name the town for you.’ She was thinking of the romance of the matter and knew that just across Big Black River, on the bluff in Attala County, a mile and a half east of their home, lived two Indians named Charles and Louis Durant. She suggested that the town be given the Indian name ‘Durant.’”

“Later these Indians built a log hut on the lot north of where the station now stands, just west of the track, which in recent years was the site of the Park Hotel. Since the destruction of the hotel by fire in 1919, the property has been acquired by the G. B. Ramsey Company for a creamery.”

“J. H. Lockhart, who is now (1926) past 75 years of age, lives in a modest cottage in sight of the place where he was born. Less than half a mile away, on a beautiful ridge southwest of his home, is the old home place of his boyhood and youth. The old residence gave way several years ago to a large 2-story modern dwelling erected by W. H. ‘Corn Cob’ Smith, now occupied by Doctor Sigman.”

“Thus, within the lifetime of those who are now living and active citizens here, the railroad has been built and developed to its present state of efficiency. Two other lines of railroad have been built and have their terminal, with a roundhouse here, since the days referred to by Mr. Lockhart: the Aberdeen District of the Illinois Central and the Tchula District of the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley. There pass into and out of the yard of this city twenty passenger trains every twenty-four hours. This is passenger and mail service as good as, if not better than, that enjoyed by any other town of corresponding size in the state.”