Witch's Hat Depot

A year after the Pere Marquette Depot was destroyed by fire in 1908, South Lyon, Michigan, unveiled a new train station with an unusual quirk. The building was designed with a distinct conical shaped roof, which gave it a look similar to that of a witch’s hat. 

For more than 45 years, the Witch’s Hat Depot (then-named Queen Anne Depot) brought cargo and passengers along two intersecting rail lines, serving as a waypoint between the towns of Pontiac and Jackson before it was closed in 1955. 

The Witches Hat Depot was vacant for the next two decades before it was bought by the township in 1975. The city had the building restored and moved to a local park as part of the town’s bicentennial project.

In 1981, the station was turned into a museum and today serves as the meeting place for the South Lyon Historical Society, as well as a thriving community center. Its carefully preserved inside shows what an early 19th-century train depot would have looked like.