Fanwood (NJT Station) - History

History

The original station was built a quarter mile to the north and called Scotch Plains Station. That station was put in service in 1837 by the Elizabethtown and Somerville Railroad which had completed the line from Elizabethport to Plainfield by that time. Modern day Midway Avenue occupies the route of the old line. The original line had to skirt the hill at Fanwood because wood-burning locomotives of the time could not climb the steep grade. With the advent of more powerful coal-burning locomotives that were able to climb the Fanwood hill, the Central Railroad of New Jersey (which had taken over the line) began to acquire land in 1867 to relocate the line to its current location. The company's charter from the state required the railroad to acquire all the land between the old line and the new line. The land acquired was fan-shaped. Besides a new station, the land was developed by the railroad into suburban housing lots laid out on a network of curved streets and called Fanwood Park. The Central New Jersey Land Improvement Company, a subsidiary of the railroad, built and sold houses in Fanwood Park for the next forty years.

The Fanwood Station Complex consists of the main station building (1874), the shelter (1897) and the overpass (1946). The station main building was built in 1874 in the popular Victorian Carpenter Gothic style. The station was part of a new line from Westfield to Plainfield and named Fanwood after Miss Fanny Wood, the daughter of a railroad official. Similar portmanteau names are present in the town of Elberon, named after local property magnate L. B. Brown. The lands surrounding the station became known as Fanwood Park, and the Borough of Fanwood was created in 1895. Several stations were erected in this style. These include Matawan on the North Jersey Coast line (though it lost its gingerbread trim) and Red Bank (restored), and the now demolished/replaced/completely remodeled stations Branchport, Bound Brook, Perth Amboy and Asbury Park.

The shelter was built 1897 for the Central Railroad of New Jersey (New Jersey Central) to the designs of an unknown architect in a similar style to the main building. It was designed as a baggage facility and passenger waiting area for the Southside (non-main building) of the tracks. and converted into a temporary commuter sheeted in 1965 when the station was sold to the Broough of Fanwood and converted for community use. The overpass, which bridged two sides of the tracks, was erected in 1946.

The station was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 17, 1980.