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Photograph of Berea Union Depot
Photograph by Chris Light, CC BY-SA 3.0. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Berea Union Depot

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. 9 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1902.

From the record

One of 426 National Register listings published here for Cuyahoga County · listed in 1980 · category: Building.

Sources: the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

  • What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
  • Address. 30 Depot St., Berea, 44017
  • When was it listed? 1980-11-21
  • Category. building
  • City. Berea city
  • National Register reference number. 80002976 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Then and now

1902 to 1994

The ground this property stands on, surveyed 92 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet covering Berea Union Depot, surveyed 1994
Topographic sheet covering Berea Union Depot, surveyed 1902

Specimens collected near this property

12 of 1,113 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,113 specimens collected within 10 miles of Berea Union Depot between 1849 and 1975: 1,013 Animalia, 63 Plantae, 30 Fungi, 6 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. D. Huryn, A. D. Selby, A. G. Newhall and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Image SpeciesYear Collected by Where, as recorded
Specimen of Osmunda claytoniana L.Osmunda claytoniana L.1894Winkler, H.J.Cleveland.
Specimen of Camptosorus rhizophyllus (L.) LinkCamptosorus rhizophyllus (L.) Link1895Ashcraft, G.B.Berea
Specimen of Irpiciporus lacteus (Fr.) MurrillIrpiciporus lacteus (Fr.) Murrill1895F. D. KelseyBerea.
A photograph of the species Setophaga americana, not of this specimenSetophaga americana (Linnaeus, 1758)1849Jared P. KirtlandRockport
A photograph of the species Eremophila alpestris, not of this specimenEremophila alpestris praticola (Henshaw, 1884)1877A. HallEast Rockport
A photograph of the species Baeolophus bicolor, not of this specimenBaeolophus bicolor (Linnaeus, 1766)1879Willard G. Van NameEast Rockport
A photograph of the species Contopus virens, not of this specimenContopus virens (Linnaeus, 1766)1879A. HullEast Rockport
A photograph of the species Setophaga tigrina, not of this specimenSetophaga tigrina (J.F.Gmelin, 1789)1879A. HallEast Rockport
A photograph of the species Astur Lacepède, not of this specimenAstur Lacepède, 17991880A. HallEast Rockport
A photograph of the species Caprimulgus vociferus, not of this specimenCaprimulgus vociferus vociferus A.Wilson, 18121880A. HallEast Rockport
A photograph of the species Icterus spurius, not of this specimenIcterus spurius (Linnaeus, 1766)1880A. HallEast Rockport
Calidris alpina (Linnaeus, 1758)1890Saunders, F.A.LOCNM: Rondeau

All 1,113 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Storms near this property

15 since 1996

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Berea, the town this property stands in, in 15 storm reports between 1996 and 2024: 8 thunderstorm wind, 4 hail, 3 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 2007Flash FloodBerea$2,200,000Heavy rain and thunderstorms moved across Cuyahoga County during the morning hours of the 7th. The first reports of flash flooding occurred in Berea and then quickly expanded into Brookpark. Several roads, including State Route 237 through Berea, were closed. As the heavy rain continued, major streets across Cleveland became flooded. In downtown Cleveland, flash flooding occurred along streets just north of Superior Avenue, especially near the intersection with Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. In this area, seventeen people had to be rescused from their vehicles, and a total of thirty five rescues were performed on other streets throughout downtown Cleveland. Approximately thirty eight residences and two businesses sustained major flood damage. Rainfall reports across Cuyahoga County from this event ranged from 1.74 inches in North Royalton to 3.74 inches in Westlake. The majority of the rain fell in a four hour time period between 7 am and 11 am.
September 1996Flash FloodBerea$100,000no account filed
August 2024Thunderstorm WindBerea$20,000Roof damage reported about one-mile ESE of Berea.
May 2019Thunderstorm WindBerea$10,000A tree fell on to a house with damage.
June 2004Thunderstorm WindBerea$8,000Thunderstorm winds downed trees in both Berea and Parma.
August 2005Thunderstorm WindBerea$4,000Three trees were reported down.
June 2008Thunderstorm WindBerea$3,000A tree and a large limb was reported down.
August 2024Thunderstorm WindBerea-Large tree downed near intersection of French Street and Prospect Road in Berea. Numerous tree branches downed elsewhere in town.
July 2023Thunderstorm WindBerea-Several large tree limbs snapped and an entire tree downed in Berea.
April 2022Thunderstorm WindBerea-Large tree limbs downed in Berea.
September 2020Flash FloodBerea-Sewer lid blew of eastbound lane of W 117th Street with water spilling into the street.
May 2017HailBerea-Nickel sized hail was observed.
June 2008HailBerea-Nickel size hail was observed.
August 2005HailBerea-Penny size hail was observed.
April 2004HailBerea-Penny size hail was observed.

Every storm recorded in Cuyahoga County

Maps showing this location

9 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

From the nomination file

4,972 words on record

When this property was proposed for the National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is, and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain. It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s typewriter's.

Description of the property

_unexposed _excellent measuring approximately 24 feet by 70 feet, with load-bearing walls X good of slate shingles.The windows of the first story are rectangular, The Berea Union Depot is a two-story building in the Victorian Gothic Xaltered style with a gable roof and a square tower projecting from the north 8.

Statement of significance

(in one paragraph) The Berea Union Depot was a significant hub in the railroad networks of northeastern Ohio from the time of its construction in 1876 until its closing in 1931. In addition, the building is an unusually substantial and the new depot was completed on May 3, 1876. The Plain Dealer called the building "the finest passenger facility outside the big cities." In the station was later used by the Big Four (Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis & Chicago) and the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, later local street railway.

depot are unusual for northeastern Ohio, where wooden and occasionally Depot has always been a significant source of civic pride, including 1600-1699 1500-1599 1700-1799 1400-1499 communications commerce economics conservation exploration/settlement industry humanitarian invention engineering education Builder/Architect theater Period agriculture 1900- Specific dates literature law The sandstone construction and Victorian Gothic detail of the Berea day north and south stopped at the station.The depot also serveda The Cleveland, Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad was constructed in combined to form the New York Central and finally the Penn Central. well-designed example of Victorian Gothic railroad station architecture.

brick stations are more common.In addition to its architectural character largest sandstone operationsin the late 19th century.Construction of In the 1880s ten trains each day east and west and eight trains each 1850 and passed through Berea.By the mid-1870sa new passenger station its designation as a historic site by the Berea City Council in 1980. and its importance in the history of Berea Berea Union - science - archeology-prehistoric community planning . landscape architecture. - relligion addition to the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & Indianapolis Railroad, 9.

The whole case file for this property - 4,972 words, 31 pages, reproduced complete.

Quoted from the National Register nomination for reference 80002976, 31 pages, held by the National Archives in Record Group 79. See the catalogue record.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 80002976 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Cuyahoga CountyAll 426 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

  • Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
  • Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
  • How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
  • Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
  • Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.