So, when the legendary Alexander Mixter comes a-calling …  he who lives to rescue  historic buildings like the Lee Mansion … well, the Rotary Club of Saginaw listens.

Which resulted in our club today (Aug. 19) entering the dumpster donation category in our long legacy of serving Saginaw. It is a first in our 108-year history of backing of various projects and needs.

 

Mixter announced recently he had been appointed as the chair of the maintenance committee for the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp., aka  Potter Street Station. Relishing in the fact he could get down and dirty again to clean up a colossal mess, which is his forte.

 

But he was in need of money to rent two dumpsters to start cleaning out the long-suffering Potter Street Station as it enters a possibly new development that is exciting.

 

So our board voted to fund one of the dumpsters, a big 40 yard one.

 

And today, 65 youngsters on the Michigan Lutheran Seminary football teams filled up the darn thing in around three hours. 9th through 12th graders. Sometimes pausing to make sure what they were tossing wasn’t something valuable. 

 

 

Potter Street Station was built 1881 and was considered Saginaw‘s Ellis Island, where scores of incoming residents first set foot on city soil. Traveling circuses also came into the station and marched their animals down to what was then the Auditorium.

 

Railroad passenger service from it ended in 1950 and the station closed to freight traffic in 1986. In 1990, the  Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp. purchased the station from CSX transportation for $10,000. 

 

In 1996, the National Park Service entered station to the National Register of Historic Places. It is now being studied  as  a transportation hub for the Saginaw Transit Authority and Regional Services (STARS) bus system.

 

Over the years it has battled demolition orders, fires and vandalism.