Allen Water Station

Allen Water Station is a small railroad heritage district along Cottonwood Creek in Allen, Texas, now part of the city park system. The Houston & Texas Central Railway began the station in 1874 to refill steam locomotives on its line between Dallas and Denison. The most visible feature is a stone overfall dam, about 69 feet long in its central section, which created the water supply. Nearby are twelve stone piers that once supported a circular wooden water tank, the brick and concrete remains of a pumping facility, the railroad bed, and a steel plate girder bridge dated 1910. Southern Pacific expanded the system around 1912 with a larger concrete dam downstream, which was later breached and demolished, allowing the older stone dam to function again. The station was built at a remote spot before the town of Allen was platted in 1876. The surviving ruins and archaeological remains preserve evidence of how a rural railroad water station was arranged and operated.