Kansas City Southern Railroad Depot

The railroad came first, and the depot came after the boom it started. The Kansas City Southern was running through the parish by 1897, and it brought a steady stream of Kansas City lumber merchants who bought up Vernon Parish pine. Nona Mills built its Leesville sawmill in 1899. By 1900 the town had ten general stores, four drugstores, seven lawyers and seven doctors, and its population had grown past 1,100. The depot opened in 1916, once the cutting was well under way, and it stands just south of the downtown historic district.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kisatchie National Forest: Longleaf Vista — 28 mi
  A free ridge-top overlook and 1.5-mile loop above the 8,700-acre Kisatchie Hills Wilderness on the Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway, in the forest Caroline Dormon helped win in 1930.

More markers nearby

• Life Along The Sabine River — steps away
• Vernon Parish Founders — 0.4 mi
• Vernon Parish Courthouse — 0.4 mi
• Great Louisiana Maneuvers — 0.4 mi