Photos: Whistle Stop Depot along the RR tracks in Tucson

In 2008, Nancy Bender bought the old warehouse in the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood now known as the Whistle Stop Depot.

As early as 1915, the building was advertised as having "public scales" at the Peoples Fuel Co., which advertised for "fuel, coal, wood, hay and grain" by 1918. In 1949, Ralph's Transfer Co. took over the warehouse and property until the sale to Bender in 2008.

The Whistle Stop Depot had been mostly used for private affairs, from weddings to corporate parties. The full-service venue at 127 W. Fifth St., which had hosted everything from BICAS (Bicycle Inter-Community Art and Salvage) events and art shows since 2013, has a bar and catering facilities, a half-acre of outdoor space dotted with Chinese jujube fruit trees and concrete bench seating and plenty of parking on the adjacent half-acre dirt lot abutting what will soon be the city’s Deck Plaza Park — part of the yearslong Downtown Links project. – Cathy Burch