All Aboard: West-Bound Trains in American Culture
“The station platform was soon full of restless young people, glancing up the track, looking at their watches, as if they could not endure their own town a moment longer.” –Lucy Gayheart
Coming Spring 2026!
The National Willa Cather Center’s historic Burlington Depot will soon welcome visitors of all ages to explore the sights and sounds of the railway! When the railroad opened in Red Cloud in 1878, the fortunes of the town were forever changed. Our newest exhibit, All Aboard: West-Bound Trains in American Culture, will feature numerous historical photographs, railway artifacts, and hands-on activities focused around railroad history, the literary legacy of the Burlington, and the railway as a vehicle for the settlement of the West.
About the Depot
The original two-story section of the depot, constructed in 1897, is the building Cather was familiar with during her last years in Red Cloud. Cather uses the depot as a setting in many of her works, like My Ántonia, “The Sculptor’s Funeral,” Lucy Gayheart, and an early play, “The West Bound Train.” The Burlington Depot has undergone significant improvements in recent years. Windows and doors were restored, and siding that matches the original historic profile was installed. Relocation of new mechanical equipment allowed for additional exhibit space, and the site is now accessible thanks to the addition of paved walkways and reinstallation of original bricks from the station platform.
Now that restoration is complete, attention turns to reinterpretation, as the Burlington Depot functions as the crucial backdrop to telling the story of Willa Cather’s initial encounters with the Nebraska frontier and its varied people. The history of the railroad and its role in the settlement of the Plains invites the inclusion of multiple languages (both visually and through the use of audible soundtracks), vivid graphic elements that appeal and are accessible to a broad family audience, and experiential interpretive opportunities for student and family groups through the use of non-artifact tactile tools, props, and papers.
More About the Project
Key themes of the exhibit will include:
- Railroad as vehicle for both people and ideas
- Immigration/colonization
- Entertainment and culture
- Technology and communication
- Railroad as setting for Cather's works
- Homecoming/leave-taking
- Symbolic of triumph over frontier
- "Night Express," Burlington Route," many others
- Railroad history/Red Cloud settlement history
Design, fabrication, and installation of the exhibit panels and casework at the Burlington Depot will cost approximately $150,715. Names of supporters who contribute $1,000 or more will be featured on the exhibit's credit panel. Sponsors' logos will be included with donations beginning at the $2,500 level.
Exhibit Sponsor Benefits
| Invitation to the welcome reception | Commemorative exhibit bookmark |
Luggage tag set featuring the Burlington Depot | Your name on the exhibit panel | 11x17 print of Cassia Kite's The Burlington Depot (thread on canvas). | 100th anniversary copy of My Ántonia. | |
| $5,000 | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| $2,500 | X | X | X | X | X | |
| $1,000 | X | X | X | X | ||
| $500 | X | X | X | |||
| $250 | X | X | ||||
| $100 | X |
More about our reinterpretation strategy
This exhibit is part of a broader reinterpretation project, in which we have tried to foreground two fundamental questions:
- Why is this site/object/person important to Red Cloud?
- Why is this site/object/person important to the life and writing of Willa Cather?
We hope this two-fold interpretive strategy will ensure that the Burlington Depot is as richly and fully explored as a local history site as it is as a Willa Cather historic site. The expansion of our interpretation will help to more fully situate our organization in our local community, as well as attract new visitors to our sites—those who may be interested in architecture, in Nebraska or rural history, in preservation—in addition to those who are solely interested in Cather. Exhibit themes are explored through the inclusion of people of color, immigrants, laborers, and others on the fringes of Cather's world.
Support for this project is also made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
About the Institute of Museum and Library Services
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation's libraries and museums. We advance, support, and empower America's museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development. IMLS envisions a nation where individuals and communities have access to museums and libraries to learn from and be inspired by the trusted information, ideas, and stories they contain about our diverse natural and cultural heritage. To learn more, visit www.imls.gov and follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn.
