FOREVER TAMAQUA: Community celebrates rail station’s commemoration on stamp
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - A large print of the Forever Stamp featuring the Tamaqua Station is on display at a ceremony celebrating the stamp's release on March 9, 2023.
TAMAQUA – “Most of the time we’re meeting to [raise a toast,] it’s to memorialize our past. Tonight, it’s to immortalize, on a Forever Stamp. Forever Tamaqua.”
Those words were spoken by Tony Odorizzi as the Tamaqua community packed the Tamaqua Station to celebrate the release of a postage stamp featuring its likeness.
The station was built in 1874 by the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and as successor railroads abandoned trackage and service in Schuylkill County, so too did they abandon the station. What is now a regional landmark fell into disrepair until residents organized the group Tamaqua Save Our Station and found support to purchase and save the building.
The station now serves as a passenger excursion hub for the Reading and Northern Railroad, along with the popular Tamaqua Station Restaurant.
“This is a pretty special day which no one ever could have predicted,” State Senator David G. Argall (R-29) said at Thursday’s ceremony.
Argall spoke about the efforts to restore the station in the 1990s, noting the state and federal grants, along with donations and fundraising, which “saved the building from the bulldozer.”
“This truly was an initiative that united the whole community and it helped spur a lot of revitalization that you see here in the last 20 years,” Argall said. “Before we did this restoration, the prevailing thought in Tamaqua was often that ‘We could never do that.”’
“This station has served as a vital link of transportation for the local community of Tamaqua for decades,” Beth Trexler, postmaster at the Tamaqua Post Office said. “Perhaps departing for other destinations or simply anxiously awaiting a loved one’s arrival.”
“Today, it symbolizes the past and remains a present day marvel for the Tamaqua community to continue to enjoy,” Trexler added.
She said the selection of stations for the stamp series which Tamaqua’s is part of looked at historic stations in large cities and small towns, with a specific focus on stations people could visit.
“The final five were selected based on visual strengths of both day and night views and the cohesiveness of the panes,” Trexler said. “The Tamaqua station was chosen because, in its humility, a sense of beauty was found unlike any other station.”
Thursday’s ceremony packed the station to capacity as residents and dignitaries alike came to celebrate.
Souvenirs featuring the stamp’s design were sold, such as mugs, as well as other station memorabilia.
The stamps, which soon can be purchased at most post offices, are in a series commemorating rail travel alongside four other stations from across the nation.
“A station often was designed to advertise the importance of the surrounding community, along with the power and prestige of the railroad company serving it,” the postal service said in a media release Thursday. “In many smaller towns, the railroad station was the focal point of community life.”
The other stations include Cincinnati’s Union Terminal; Frederick County, Maryland’s Point of Rocks Station; Richmond, Virginia’s Main Street Station, and San Bernardino, California’s Santa Fe Depot.
Tamaqua’s station is the only one featured that is not served by regular commuter or Amtrak rail service.
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