Tomball 'stationmaster' keeps depot history alive

published Jun. 22, 2011

Ken Walden has never worked for the railroad but has been a life-long train enthusiast, which aids in his job as the fact-filled historian of the Old Tomball Depot.

An illustrator by trade, Walden spends every Sunday afternoon in the restored Tomball Depot by the tracks that run from Galveston northward, as they have more than 100 years. As a volunteer, he regularly shares stories with locals and tourists who wander by for a look or to shoot a photo by the old caboose.

Walden tells visitors of how the depot was the first building constructed in the tiny railroad town of Peck and how on Dec. 2, 1907, Peck was renamed Tomball after Thomas Henry Ball, the man responsible for bringing prosperity to town by way of the railroad in the late 1800s.

Walden's original railroad illustrations decorate the two-tone green walls of the depot among faded and rusted memorabilia from the golden age of rail travel. On exhibit are two gowns worn by Mrs. Thomas Ball to the presidential inauguration of William McKinley in 1897, along with old handwritten Western Union messages, train orders and other documents found in the depot's attic during restoration.

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