The Chicago Great Western drove trestle pilings across the Zumbro in 1884 and laid track through Kenyon in 1885, and the depot went up where the tracks met Main Street. For eighty years it was the town's front door: agents worked it around the clock, sold tickets, loaded freight and "offed" the mail bags daily. Immigrants arrived through it, milk went out to the dairies, and lumber, seed, stoves and implements came in from John Deere, Sears, International Harvester and Montgomery Ward. A fifty-ton steam coaling station stood just north around 1900. The Milwaukee Road built a competing spur into town in 1903.
The Great Western ended service in 1968 and the Milwaukee Road in 1974; the line was scrapped and the land and buildings auctioned. House mover Howard Flaten bought the depot, stripped the stucco and found the original siding sound. The city paid him one dollar for it, hired him to move it to the old Brandvold Tile Factory lot beside the pool, and set it down in 1974 under Mayor John L. Cole. The Kenyon High School class of 1975 painted it that Fourth of July weekend as a penalty for misbehavior on their class trip. The KENYON sign in the gable is the railroad's; the Bicentennial plaque under it was hung in 1976; a cast-iron sign on the track side still warns trespassers off railroad property.
Inside, fifteen volunteers repainted the room in 2023 to match the Goodhue depot. It seats 46 and rents for $75 plus a $50 deposit. The full history, photographs and rental terms are at depotpark.net; reserve it through the online request.