Amboy Depot Museum

The Amboy Depot Museum centers on an 1876 Italianate building that the Illinois Central Railroad raised as both a passenger station and the headquarters of its Northern Division, designed by staff architect James Nocquet after fire destroyed the railroad's earlier offices on the site. Division managers oversaw the 345-mile Centralia–East Dubuque stretch from Amboy until 1894, when the headquarters moved away and the line through town faded in importance. Passenger trains stopped calling in 1939 and the building was heavily remodeled; a citizens group later saved the depot — today owned by a committee from the Village of Amboy — and converted it into a museum, and in 1992 it joined the National Register of Historic Places as the Amboy Illinois Central Depot. The present museum has operated on the site since 2003, spreading across much of the old Illinois Central rail yard and taking in the depot, the relocated Palmer School one-room schoolhouse, and the Illinois Central freight house, moved onto the property in 2003 to head off its planned demolition. Beside the depot stands a static steam locomotive, obtained from the defunct Northwestern Steel and Wire company, remembered as the last steam engine in the United States commissioned for regular freight service.