Great Southern Railroad Passenger Depot, Fort Payne Alabama
The Alabama Great Southern Railroad Depot at Fort Payne is a fine example of boom town architecture, and one of the few surviving 19th-century railroad terminals in Alabama.
In the 1890s several towns in North Alabama experienced booms. According to Charles Grayson Summersell, an Alabama historian, "Fort Payne furnishes an excellent example of boom and panic during this period."
In 1889 the Fort Payne Iron and Coal Company was formed. Within five days $1,000,000 was raised. Investors, mainly from New England, flooded into the area and a great city was planned. From a community of 500 in 1888, Fort Payne grew into a metropolis of 2,698 in 1890. The necessary facilities for a town this size were planned.
A report of the Alabama Great Southern Railroad for Fort Payne states: "The business was so great as to require the separation of freight and passenger business, and a passenger station … is in the course of construction"
Land for the building was purchased in September 1890 for $7,000 from the Fort Payne Coal and Iron Company of which J. W. Spaulding was president. The station was completed in 1891 and the first train stopped there on October 21st, 1891. During the height of the boom, monthly receipts often came to $50,000. The boom ended when neither coal nor iron were found in sufficient amounts, and the town shrank to 1,078.
The depot was always used as such until 1970 when service was discontinued.
In 1966, Fort Payne was asked to select a site of a building which would be recognizable to the local people and which would be a unique and interesting representation of Fort Payne for use in the brochure of the Alabama Mountain Lakes Association. The passenger depot was chosen.
The depot is the sister building of the Fort Payne Opera Building, another remnant of the boom days of North Alabama.
Building Description
The Fort Payne Depot was built in 1890-91 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. The architect was Charles C. Taylor of Cincinnati, Ohio. Its asymmetrical shape is predominantly rectangular measuring 27' x 89'.
The building is one-story with a very complex hipped type roof. There are two gables, one on the front and one on the left side of the building. On the left front corner is a turret with a conical "candle snuffer" roof.
The windows are irregular, some having square transoms with flat lintels and others having arches with lunettes. These arches are a combination of Roman and Gothic.
The solidarity of the building is enhanced by the native gray sandstone and modified by the use of pink granite for trim.
The interior of the building is finished with woodwork of local pine which was installed by John Ivey of Scottsboro, Alabama. The ceilings are 14' 8" high with exposed beams of 6" x 12" hand hewn native pine. The pine flooring has since been covered with tile.
Originally the building was divided into two waiting rooms each with their own ticket windows and toilet facilities. At first, these separate waiting rooms served to segregate by sex and later by race. In 1954, when freight and passenger stations were consolidated, part of one of the waiting rooms was incorporated into an office.
Looking northeast (1970)
Track side looking northwest (1970)
