Near capacity crowd watches Santa Fe depot film

Doug Baum knew he had what he needed when going through the final edits of the short film Built to Last: A History of the Snyder Santa Fe Depot.
His 17-minute short film was screened by a near capacity crowd at the Ritz Community Theatre Tuesday night and he was pleased with the finished product. Members of the Scurry County Historical Commission, who worked to preserve some of the depot’s bricks and other structural pieces, were also impressed with the film.
“This is what we were trying to get across to the people of Scurry County,” said commission vice chair Paula Hatfield of the depot’s history. “I could not be more pleased with the results. She was really built to last. We had her for 106 years and we are sorry she is gone now.”
Commission chairman Drew Bullard said there are plans to have the film shown publicly again in the future.
“The spirit of this film was great. It gave a complete history of the depot, from its beginning to the end. It brought you in and by the end, you felt kinda sad,” he said.
That was the result Baum was going for while producing the film.
“It really wrote itself. But the challenge early on was trying to tell a story about a building that was not there,” Baum said.
So Baum turned to Snyder residents to tell the story. The film includes interviews, which were conducted by Baum’s father Jim, with former railroad employees Avon Rushing, Ben Veazey and Nathan Benitez.
“I knew these folks would give the building its voice,” Baum said.
In the film, Veazey talked about his work on the rail line, saying “They were lucky to run their trains over my tracks.”
Benitez said the railroad brought his family to Snyder and his father, who also worked for the railroad, was able to buy the family a car.
Also featured in the film were Nancy Smith, who talked about living in the bunkhouse while her father was employed by the railroad, and Roxy Small, whose father was the station manager.
Baum said once the interview with Rushing was complete, he knew “we had struck gold.”
But something was still missing, he said. That missing piece was Houston architect Larry Harris talking about the building and how its demolition meant a piece of history was gone.
“We knew we had the visuals and the words, but he added the weight of the architectural side of the story.”
Baum added a wrinkle to the end of the film involving Rushing and a piece of the depot’s history.
“You are going to have to stay after the credits. It will be worth it,” he said.