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By the end of 1868 the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad, part of a transcontinental transportation artery, was completed through southern Wyoming. Thus the territory, and later the state, was provided a stimulus for growth. Central Wyoming had to wait until 1906 for a railroad, and it was the Chicago and North Western that first arrived. On August 15, 1906, two weeks before Chicago and North Western construction crews reached Riverton, Wyoming, 1,600 homesteads in the Wind River Valley were opened up for 7,240 claimants who won the right to draw for them.

Among the first supplies shipped to Riverton was lumber for construction of a new depot. Completed in 1907, the depot became part of a transportation system that played a vital role in the agricultural and industrial development of the Wind River Valley. Not only did the Chicago and North Western Railroad provide transportation for raw materials produced, and supplies used, in the valley, it created a need for coal that was mined at places such as Hudson, and for wood and ties which were procured near the head of the Wind River. Originally, the depot housed a Railway Express Agency office, a storage room, men's waiting room, clerk's office, women's waiting room, and living quarters containing bathroom, dressing room, bedroom, kitchen and dining room, and living room.