A watercolor effect has been added to this typical small-town depot. Trains no longer stop in Big Springs (population 400), passenger service is a memory, and so the building has been moved to a park and become a museum.

The area has long been an important transportation junction along a major east-west corridor. The California, Oregon and Mormon Trails passed through here in the mid-1800s filled with emigrants and their belongings. Stagecoaches and the Pony Express used a crude shelter along the Platte River.

Still later, in 1867, the village began as a Union Pacific settlement on the transcontinental railroad, and the springs provided water for steam locomotives. The first robbery of a UPRR train happened near Big Springs a decade later.

Today, Big Springs is near the junction point of I-76 and I-80 with most of the activity clustered around gas pumps, fast food, and a budget motel. The Lincoln Highway still goes through a quiet downtown and the 1913-15 alignment veers off into Colorado.