The railroad created Billings in 1882, but it was the depot that decided the direction of commercial development of the young town.

The Northern Pacific and the land company that developed the town came in with a plan for Billings, said Kevin Kooistra- Manning, community historian with the Western Heritage Center.

As with other railroad towns of the era, such as Glendive and Livingston, Billings was laid out on a symmetrical grid bisected by railroad tracks.

In Billings, the two most important streets paralleled the tracks and were named after the Minnesota & Montana Land & Improvement Co., created by NP President Frederick Billings and other men connected to the railroad.

Kooistra-Manning contends that, because the first depot and all of its successors were located on the north side of the tracks, it pointed commerce development in that direction.

"The scales were tipped from the beginning in favor of the north side," Kooistra-Manning said.

When that depot didn't come up to railroad standards, the Headquarters Hotel, also on the north side of the tracks, was used, according to a history of downtown Billings by Chere Jiusto for the Yellowstone Historic Preservation Board.

After the Headquarters burned, its replacement at the foot of North Broadway also faced north.

Although a freight depot was built on the South Side and the area south of the tracks became a residential area where some of the town's movers and shakers lived, commercial development continued on the north side.

The construction of important buildings on the north side further anchored the growing commercial district.

The area included First Congregational Church, for which the Minnesota & Montana Improvement & Improvement Co. gave land and Frederick Billings gave construction money.

"By 1884, the north side was prospering," Kooistra-Manning said.

When a new depot was completed in 1909, it was called Union Depot to recognize the arrival of the Chicago Burlington and Quincy and Great Northern railroads to town.

The imposing building was in an eclectic mix of Beaux Art, Flemish and classical styles, said Dennis Deppmeier, an architect with A&E Architects who helped save the depot in the 1990s.

Located across North 23rd and 24th streets, the depot was at the center of the busiest part of town.

At one time 20 trains arrived and departed daily from the Union Depot.

Trains brought in homesteaders and manufacturer goods and took away livestock and agricultural products.

Hotels sprang up along Montana Avenue to accommodate travelers coming in and leaving town on the train. Some of the original brick buildings that housed the hotels remain.

Because the railroad was the main transportation link to the outside world, the depot saw its share of dignitaries.

Among the earliest were Frederick Billings and the former U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant, who stopped briefly in Billings in September 1883 on their way to the ceremonies driving the last spike at Gold Creek completing the railroad, Jiusto wrote.

Two more VIPs arrived in 1911. In April, it was former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, who spoke to as many as 8,000 people from balcony of Commercial Hotel across from Union Depot.

In October, Roosevelt's successor, President Howard Taft, drew a crowd of thousands when he arrived by rail in Billings.

For decades, the train was the main way to get from town to town.

People in Miles City would take the train to Billings for a piano lesson or to go to the dentist, said Ruth Towe, a former board member of the Billings Depot Inc.

The depot also was a place to see men off to war or children off to college and to meet relatives coming from out of state.

"The train connected Billings to the rest of the world," Towe said.

In the 1970s, Towe would get on the train in Billings with her children and go to Glendive, where she would be met by her mother who drove from Circle.

The depot was shuttered when passenger trains stopped in 1979, and it remained closed for most of the next 20 years.

One exception was in 1991, when the parts of the movie "Far and Away," starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, were filmed in the depot.