TIME CAPSULES LARRY HALL

Fire threatened Richmond landmark The clock in the tower at Main Street Station read 12:48 when the first train pulled in the afternoon of Nov. 27, 1901.

"A throng of people had gathered to greet the incoming train, and they evinced the pride and pleasure that the citizens of Richmond feel in the splendid new passenger depot," the next day's Richmond Times said. The report called the French Renaissance-style depot in the 1500 block of East Main Street "the finest railroad station in the South."

Main Street Station played its role as a bustling railway hub until train travel's popularity diminished after the 1950s. The station closed in 1975, but by then it had assumed a new identity as a treasured landmark.

In 1983, what seemed a promising new chapter in the station's story was about to begin. Investors purchased the station with plans to restore it and adapt the property for reuse as a shopping mall. Construction for the $10 million project was slated to start in late October.

Before work began, a Shockoe Bottom apartment dweller noticed wisps of white smoke escaping a dormer window at the vacant station during the early evening of Oct. 7. At 7:05 p.m., the Richmond Fire Department received the first report of a fire at Main Street Station. Before the night ended, six alarms were sounded, bringing more than 110 city firefighters to the scene.

"Firefighters said they had trouble containing the fire from the moment they arrived," said the next morning's Richmond Times-Dispatch. Within minutes, the wisps of smoke became a raging inferno that engulfed the roof and top two floors of the five-story building. Lanes of the Interstate 95 overpass near the station were closed during the three-hour battle to save the landmark.

Somber crowds pushed as close as possible to witness the station's fate. "I've been in and out of that station since I was a kid," a bystander said. As the fire continued to hold the upper hand, some spoke of the building's loss as if it were a certainty. "This was a unique building," said one.

Fire officials pronounced the blaze under control by 10 p.m. Despite the fire's intensity, no lives were lost; two firefighters sustained minor injures.

As smoke dissipated, spotlights revealed the smoldering remains of Main Street Station's once-majestic roof. Gone were most of the red, baked-clay tiles and many of the heavily ornamented dormers. Chimneys and the clock tower looked skeletal against the night sky. Missing also was the station's fifth floor. "If we'd lost the fourth floor, we would have lost the building," Fire Chief Ronald Lewis told The Times-Dispatch.

The chief suspected arson. "There's no possible way this could have started on the fifth floor without some help," he said. Investigators were unable to prove it, however. Whatever secrets the top floor may have held had vanished in flames and smoke.

The damage was not as severe as it seemed. In the aftermath, architectural historian Robert Winthrop toured the building and pronounced it "eminently salvageable." None of the brick walls had collapsed, and the roof's tiles and dormers could be duplicated. "The interior of the building was not particularly notable," Winthrop added.

The fire delayed but did not derail the mall project. "The station is fully insured," said a Times-Dispatch report. As restoration proceeded, the building's distinctive roofing tiles were duplicated by the same Ohio company that made the originals.

The restored and renovated Main Street Station opened as a shopping mall in late 1985. It attracted few shoppers and closed in less than three years. It then served as a state office building. In late 2003, the station returned to its roots as a train depot.