The Salt Lake City Union Pacific Depot is a building on the western edge of downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. Built in 1908–09, it dates back to the more prosperous era in the history of American railroad travel. As Salt Lake Union Pacific Railroad Station, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2024 it was repurposed as a hotel, Asher Adams, Autograph Collection, with the historic structure containing the hotel's lobby, restaurants, function rooms, and 13 luxury suites and a new building behind it containing 212 hotel rooms.
History
Originally called the Union Station, it was jointly constructed by the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad and the Oregon Short Line, both later wholly owned by the Union Pacific, at an estimated cost of $450,000 ($ in dollars). The platforms behind the station ran north-to-south, parallel to the first main line built in the Salt Lake Valley, which predated the station building. South of 1300 South this is the route used by the UTA TRAX Blue Line and Salt Lake City Southern, while north of North Temple (100 North) it is used by the FrontRunner line and Union Pacific. Trains from the west used a line south of 900 South in Glendale to approach the north-to-south platforms. The Bamberger Railroad & Salt Lake and Utah Railroad Interurban lines also stopped at their own station nearby. When Amtrak was formed in 1971, it took over the remaining passenger services at the station, but after Rio Grande joined Amtrak all trains were moved to its station three blocks south.
Amtrak
From 1977 to 1986 the depot served as Salt Lake City's Amtrak station, but was then replaced by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Depot. It was served by the Desert Wind, and Pioneer trains, both of which were discontinued in 1997; until its route was reconfigured in 1983, this station served as the Pioneers terminus. The Desert Wind ran daily from Chicago to Los Angeles and the Pioneer ran daily Chicago to Seattle. In 1999 Amtrak moved to the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub.
Adaptive reuse
In 1989, the State of Utah received the historical building as a donation. The main lobby, no longer used by Amtrak (which has relocated to the Rio Grande Depot and later the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub), was acquired in 1999 by the developers of a nearby mall, The Gateway. The venue, operated by Live Nation Entertainment, has 1,200 seats across two levels. In 2016, The Gateway was acquired by Oaktree Capital Management and Vestar, which subsequently announced plans in 2018 to open a hotel in the Union Pacific Depot. The hotel, which was originally to have opened in 2021, was to have 225 rooms within a new eight-story annex. The Union Pacific Depot would become a main entrance for the hotel, with retail and eateries; the Depot performance venue would have continued to operate in the building's northern end.
Progress on the hotel was delayed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the hotel's developers were required to preserve the building as a publicly-accessible space due to an existing easement on the property. The Asher Adams Hotel was named after cartographers John R. Asher and George H. Adams, who were the first to depict railroad routes. operated as part of Marriott International's Autograph Collection hotel brand. The historic structure contains the hotel's lobby, restaurants, function rooms, and 13 luxury suites, and a new building behind it contains 212 hotel rooms. The hotel also has two bars.
thumb|left|The interior of the Union Pacific Depot after its renovation into the lobby of the Asher Adams, Autograph Collection
The sandstone building is in French Second Empire style, and includes a terrazzo floor and stained glass windows. One ceiling mural "Driving The Golden Spike" by San Francisco artist John MacQuarrie in 1909, depicts the driving of the Golden Spike north of Salt Lake City at "Promontory Summit" signifying the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. Another mural, "Emigrants Entering Salt Lake Valley," by San Francisco artists John MacQuarrie & August C. Wocker in 1909, shows the 1847 arrival of Mormon pioneers to what is now Salt Lake City.
The building has a grand hall with a vaulted ceiling. Several side rooms were originally used for separate male and female waiting areas. The depot once housed an emergency hospital, lunch room, baggage rooms, and offices for both of the original railroads.