The former train station in Lee was built in 1893 by the Housatonic Railroad, shortly before it was taken over by the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad. The station is located a block from Main Street at the intersection of Railroad and Elm streets. It replaced an earlier station that was located on the opposite side of the train tracks. The structure is sheathed with wood clapboards in Queen Anne/Stick Style fashion.
The photograph shown above dates back to the early 1900s when the station featured large roof overhangs serving as canopies for sheltering passengers. Additional images shown below span the decades up to the present day.
The station and a neighboring freight building played a major role in the town’s economic development, bringing paper products, foodstuffs, and quarried marble to nationwide markets, as well as bringing tourists, vacationers, and seasonal residents to area estates, summer homes, and hotels. According to one source, during the railroad’s heyday, the Lee station was the busiest one on the line between Bridgeport, Conn., and Pittsfield. Another report stated that in the late 1800s and early 1900s, crowds of people gathered at the Lee station (as well as the Lenoxdale station) to watch exotic wildlife unloaded onto wagons for the trip up to William Whitney’s expansive wildlife preserve on October Mountain. Whitney served as secretary of the Navy under the administration of President Grover Cleveland and was later credited with revitalizing horse racing at Saratoga.
Railroad records offer conflicting dates for the end of passenger service: either 1969 or 1971. Freight service terminated a few years later. After being sold to private owners in the mid-1970s, the station served briefly as a real estate office and was then converted into a restaurant in the early 1980s. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places circa 2010.
Additional images shown below span the decades up to the present day.
