 The first Austin station opened in 1899, as part of a grade-level extension of the Lake Street Elevated Railroad west from terminal at 52nd Avenue through Austin and Oak Park.It temporarily served as the terminal for the Lake Street Elevated until the line was extended further west later that year.It was rebuilt in 1962, as part of a project which moved the western two and a half miles of the Lake Street line off of its street level alignment and onto an abandoned strip of the parallel Chicago and Northwestern Railway's embankment.