Wadley Railroad Depot, Wadley Alabama

Date added: February 25, 2025

East (right) elevation and south (left) facade (2010)

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The Wadley Railroad Depot was constructed in 1907 by the Atlanta, Birmingham, and Atlantic Railroad to serve the new town of Wadley, planned and developed by the Callaway Development Company of LaGrange, Georgia. The company abandoned its plans in 1910 and the lofty expectations for the town's growth and potential went unrealized. Still, Wadley had established itself by that time as a small regional trade center, a role it has continued to play ever since. The Wadley Railroad Depot was a central element of the community's economic and social life until it closed circa 1964.

The Depot was the principal train depot for the town of Wadley from 1907 until circa 1964. The Callaway Company conceived Wadley as a planned model industrial community that would couple its location along the Tallapoosa River with an excellent central location between Birmingham and LaGrange along the new Atlanta, Birmingham, and Atlantic Railroad line. The Wadley Railroad Depot served as the passenger and freight depot in Wadley for the ABA and its successors from 1907 until it was closed circa 1964.

The Depot is one of only four documented Mission style railroad stations surviving in Alabama. The other examples are the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad Depot in Bridgeport, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot in Cullman, and the Gulf, Mobile, and Ohio Passenger Terminal in Mobile. The latter is a much larger and high style example than the first three and exhibits elaborate architectural detailing. Of the remaining three, the Bridgeport depot is two stories tall while Cullman and Wadley are one story. All have stuccoed exterior walls. The Bridgeport depot is relatively restrained in its stylistic detailing featuring only a clay tile roof and large, curved brackets beneath its pent roof. The Cullman depot is more exuberant in style, displaying three frontones on its street elevation along with piers and projecting brick molding. The brick work continues along the side elevations. The elevation facing the railroad line is simply designed with a stepped parapet culminating in a central frontone. A shed roof supported by square wooden posts with Y braces spans this elevation. The flat roof of the depot is hidden behind the building's parapet. The Wadley depot, the most modest in scale, features not only its stucco wall treatment but also a red tile roof whose eaves are supported by large brackets, frontones on three of its elevations, segmentally arched windows, some of which contain leaded glass, and a round-arched main entrance with a leaded glass fanlight. This attention to architectural detail in its depot recalls the town's aspirations to be an important regional trade and transportation center for east Alabama. A fifth depot in Roanoke, Randolph County, very similar to the Wadley Depot and also built for the ABA Railroad, was destroyed by fire in 2006.

The Atlanta, Birmingham, and Atlantic Railroad was organized in 1905 with the intent of acquiring the Atlantic and Birmingham Railway and linking Atlanta and Birmingham. The consolidation was completed in April 1906 and work progressed from Montezuma to Talbotton, Georgia, that year and was completed to LaGrange, Georgia in January 1907. The Railway Age reported that the railroad was opened to Wadley on September 8^th, 1907 and noted: "work is progressing from Wadley to Pyriton, Alabama, where a junction is made with the Alabama Division, which is in operation from Talladega to Ashland. Work also is progressing from Talladega to Birmingham and on a branch to Atlanta, Ga."

Advertisements for the railroad in 1907 boasted that the line "Operates the Finest Trains in the South. Vestibuled. Electric-lighted throughout, with Steam Heat in Winter and Electric Fans in Summer, Coaches elegantly appointed and provided with all modern appliances, affording travel with ease, comfort, and luxury." A "Map of the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad and Brunswick Steamship Company" of that year showed the line extending from Birmingham and Atlanta to Warm Springs, Georgia, then southeast to Fitzgerald, where one branch headed southwest to Thomasville, and another southeast to Brunswick where it linked to steamship lines serving New York, Boston, and Havana, Cuba.

The section of the railroad extending to Birmingham was completed in the summer of 1908. By 1909, the company was referring to itself as the Bee Line and boasting that it provided the most direct route from Birmingham to the Atlantic Coast.

The ABA was plagued by financial problems almost immediately and went into receivership in 1909. The company was reorganized in 1916 as the Atlanta, Birmingham, and Atlantic Railway. At that time, the company's entire bonded debt "including more than $14 million first mortgage bonds, and more than $2.4 million Alabama Terminal Company first mortgage bonds plus a substantial amount of stock were wiped out. The reorganized company had capital stock worth $30 million and its security holders paid in $3.6 million in cash against an outstanding bond issue of $4 million and bonds totaling $5 million.

On October 23^rd, 1916, the Interstate Commerce Commission posted a tentative valuation for the company:

Cost of reproduction of property owned and used (not including land) $24,155,000
Lands owned and used 2,291,413
Lands owned and not used 1,165,000
Materials and supplies 433,000
Mulga Branch leased to another operating company 788,000
Total $28,832,413
Cash on hand 200,000
Grand Total $29,032,413

The company defaulted on its bonds the following year and the New York Times noted that the company "has been in the hands of a receiver since February 24^th, 1921, and had operated at a loss since it was turned back from Federal control."

The company went into foreclosure in 1922 and was again reorganized as the Atlanta, Birmingham and Coast Railroad in 1926. In a 1935 court case, the opinion of the court stated that "it appeared, among other things, that the railroad had been an enterprise peculiarly disastrous to investors." The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad was the company's major stockholder and acquired it outright in 1946, when it became the Atlantic Coast Line Western Division. In 1967, the Atlantic Coast Line merged with the Seaboard Air Line to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. The line was merged with the Chessie System and the Seaboard System in the 1980s as the CSX System.

Wadley

The area surrounding present day Wadley was settled in the 1830s by members of the Harris, Hardy, Smith, McGill, Roberts, Danielly, and Noell families. The nearest town, Louina, was located on the east side of the Tallapoosa River. The present town was created with the coming of the Atlanta, Birmingham, and Atlantic Railroad, with its first businesses established in 1906 to serve the railroad workers.

Fuller E. Callaway, president of the Callaway Development Company of LaGrange, Georgia, recognized the potential for a new city along the ABA Railroad's main line and adjacent to the Tallapoosa River, 54 miles from Talladega and 39 miles from LaGrange, to become a regional market and trade center. Callaway was a self-made entrepreneur who, by 1900, had established textile mills along the Chattahoochee River in and around LaGrange. Callaway's various business enterprises grew over time to include several cotton mills, banks, and other industrial and commercial businesses. His family, one of the wealthiest and most prominent in Georgia, was noted for its philanthropic endeavors. In 1952, they established Callaway Gardens.

The Callaway Company acquired the land on which the new town would be built circa 1906. Anticipating that the new community would rival at least the nearby mill town of Roanoke, the ABA planned and constructed the present substantial concrete depot. Contemporary accounts record that the depot cost $12,000 to build and was completed in 1907.

Callaway carefully planned the new "model" community and named it after George Dole Wadley, Vice President and General Manager of the Wright, William, and Wadley Construction Company, one of three contractors then building railroads for the ABA, and also Second Vice President of the railroad itself.

Wadley was designed as a model city, its principal streets are eighty feet wide, and the narrowest sixty feet. The business lots are 25 x 90 feet with twenty foot alleys in the rear, and residence lots are 50 x 190 feet and upward, and all have alleys in the rear. The first thing the Development Company did after deciding upon the location of the town was to have a topographic survey and map made of the entire property. This consumed several weeks of time of an expensive engineering party, taking levels at every five feet and preparing a map showing the exact contour of the ground, every elevation, depression, twist or turn just as it was. This map was then turned over to one of the most expert engineers in the country who planned the layout of the town. Experts have pronounced it ideal and anyone can appreciate its excellence.

An article in the LaGrange Reporter dated August 1^st, 1908 boasted that Wadley was a "veritable magic city which bids fair to soon become the most important city in East Alabama."

The first commercial building in the new town was constructed about 1906 by M. H. Radney to serve the construction workers building the railroad. By the time the line was completed in 1907, additional businesses had opened and the town soon contained a small collection of substantial brick commercial buildings, including a hardware store built by Radney to replace his original frame building. By the following summer, the LaGrange Reporter noted:

Although the development of Wadley has been wonderfully rapid, it is in no sense a boom town. On the contrary, its development has been conducted along the most original lines. The efforts of its developers have been directed so far toward gathering a nucleus of sound, substantial citizens and business enterprises as a foundation.

By the time Wadley was incorporated on September 15^th, 1908 its population had risen to 333 and the downtown commercial core included the Bank of Wadley, Fletcher Brothers Supply Merchants, Handley's Hardware Store, and "three substantial brick stores." The Callaway Development Company was then building a brick building that would house five stores on the first floor and a hotel on the second and L. S. Schuressler's supply company was building a new building. The LaGrange Reporter article summarized the town's growth in its first year:

Wadley now has sixteen brick stores completed and in various stages of construction in addition to a number of wooden stores. It's station building, a handsome concrete edifice, cost over $12,000. The two brick businesses and hotel block in course of construction will cost about $20,000. With a strong bank in its own building, with two warehouses, a large modern ginnery, a wood working establishment, with good schools, two churches nearing completion, and a third in contemplation, with houses going up on all sides and three to five applicants for each house, it will be readily seen that Wadley has passed the doubtful stage and has taken its place in the front rank of Alabama's young municipalities

The Methodist Episcopal Church South established a church here in December 1907 and erected a sanctuary the following year. Baptist and Christian churches were begun in 1908. By 1910, the town's population reached 426.

Residential development also progressed rapidly from 1907 until 1910. On October 15^th, 1908, the Callaway Company held a free barbeque where "lots were auctioned off with easy payment terms; special trains with low round-trip fares were arranged, and the public was invited to write for 'handsome' illustrated circulars and maps." The focal point of the town's plan was a large park atop a hill to the west of the commercial core that was named Highland Circle. More substantial residences were built surrounding the park with more modest dwellings constructed to its north and west.

The Callaway Development Company acquired the water rights along the river with the intent of developing the town as a manufacturing center much as it had done in LaGrange. Callaway had intended to dam the river and to build a textile mill but by 1910 he and the town council had a disagreement and the company abandoned its activities in Wadley.

The loss of such a substantial business interest ended Wadley's hopes of becoming the "Magic City" that Callaway had envisioned. But the community had become firmly rooted and continued to develop as a small regional trade center, albeit at a much slower pace. The town's population grew to 505 by 1920 and only reached 527 by 1930.

In addition to its various commercial enterprises, the Marbury Lumber Company began operations in Wadley in 1917. A 1933 fire insurance map published by the Alabama Inspection and Rating Bureau indicates that the core commercial area was much the same as it had been in 1910 with small clusters of brick buildings at the intersections of Main and Broad and Lee Streets. Several adjacent frame business buildings and a planing mill to the east of the depot are also indicated, as is another planing mill operated by O. O. Cotney.

When the General Convention of Christian Churches in the South began looking for a site to locate its new college in 1920, John M. Hodge of the Bank of Wadley offered land and the people of Wadley raised $22,262.50 toward the venture. The town's fortunes in the ensuing years would rely heavily on the school. Opened in September 1923 as Bethlehem College, the institution offered a full four-year high school program and two years of college with "the noble idea of providing education and ideas for scattered rural churches in the area of low family incomes". The name of the college was changed to Piedmont College in 1928 when the Congregational and Christian denominations united. The school was forced to close for a short time during the Depression and was reincorporated in 1934 as Southern Union College. It was acquired by the state university system in 1964 and now operates as a state junior college.

Wadley continues to be a small rural community with a 2009 population of 649. While much of its historic core remains, many of the buildings are underutilized and suffer from deferred maintenance.

Architecture

The Wadley Railroad Depot is an excellent example of a small scale Spanish Mission style railroad station. It retains the essential elements of its historic design: a clay tile roof with wide bracketed overhanging eaves, neo-Spanish style frontone parapets at its three principal elevations, smooth concrete walls simulating adobe, and vestiges of original leaded glass windows.

The Wadley Railroad Depot is one of only three documented Mission style railroad stations surviving in Alabama. The North Carolina and St. Louis Railroad Depot in Bridgeport shares the relatively restrained stylistic detailing found in the Wadley depot including a clay tile roof, neo-Spanish style frontones, and stucco exterior walls. The three-story Mobile, and Ohio Passenger Terminal in Mobile is a much larger high style example that exhibits elaborate architectural detailing. Of the three, the Wadley depot is the only one-story example.

Only two other Spanish Mission style railroad stations have been documented along the route of the Birmingham, and Atlantic Railroad, those in Fitzgerald, Georgia and Roanoke, Alabama. While the Fitzgerald station was larger than those in Wadley and Roanoke, it was stylistically less cohesive, as only its flanking wings exhibited the shaped frontones that dominated the designs of the other stations. The Roanoke depot was very in similar in appearance to the Wadley Depot but was destroyed by fire in July 2006.

Building Description

The Wadley Depot is a one-story poured concrete Mission style railroad building with a hipped clay tile roof with partially exposed rafter ends, cross gables with intersecting neo-Spanish style frontones, and extended eaves supported by oversized decorative wooden brackets. The building is located on a relatively flat, open site along the west side of the present-day CSX Transportation railroad line just east of the historic commercial core of Wadley. The irregularly-shaped building consists of a rectangular core to the north with a small secondary gable wing to the east toward its south end and a larger gable extension to the south with a smaller projection to its west. A concrete cargo platform extends along the north end of the east elevation of the core and ramps down at its south end. A smaller ramp accesses a cargo entrance off-center at the west elevation.

The principal three-bay wide south facade has an oversized central round arched opening that contains a double leaf door with leaded glass sidelights and a large round-arched leaded glass transom. The opening has a raised concrete surround with a decorative keystone and imposts. Segmental arched window openings with raised concrete surrounds flank the entrance to either side and retain their historic double hung sash: segmental arched leaded glass upper sash above two-light lower sash. Brackets supporting the wide roof overhang flank each opening. Each bracket consists of a horizontal chamfered cross bar with a shaped end, an angled chamfered strut, and a chamfered tie perpendicular to the strut. The brackets are supported by shaped wooden bases on simple projecting concrete imposts. A shaped neo-Spanish style frontone is centered at the roof above the entrance and has a slightly projecting cap and a recessed decorative panel. The foundation projects slightly below a water table between the entrance opening and the building corners. Exterior wall surfaces are poured concrete that have been painted. The southern elevation of the west projection is recessed one bay from the facade and has no openings. The southern elevation of the east wing is recessed two bays from the facade and has a centrally-placed window similar to those at the facade.

The ten-bay east elevation faces the railroad tracks and its design is similar to the facade. The northern six bays represent the core. The next two bays to the south project one bay to the east of the core and represent the east wing. The east wing is capped by a shaped neo-Spanish style frontone. The two southern bays are recessed behind the plane of the core and represent the south extension. Segmental arched cargo openings with raised concrete surrounds are set within the two northern bays and open onto the concrete loading platform. Each contains a sliding vertical board wood cargo door with cross bracing. A short, wide rectangular window opening flanks the southern cargo door and is set within a segmental arched projecting surround close to the roof. The opening contains a fourteen-light wood sash window. The next bay to the south and the four southern bays contain windows similar to those at the facade. The remaining two bays have segmental arched openings with raised concrete surrounds and five-panel wood pedestrian doors with arched leaded glass transoms.

The west elevation is similar in design to the east. Similar fourteen-light windows are set within the first and fourth bays (from the north) and flank similar cargo entrances. A pedestrian entrance within a rectangular opening with a five-panel wood door and a rectangular transom is located at the fifth bay. A pair of four-light windows within rectangular projecting concrete surrounds is set just below the roofline at the sixth bay. A pair of windows, similar to those at the facade, is located at the seventh bay. The eighth bay has a segmental arched pedestrian entrance, similar to those at the east elevation, with a shed clay tile canopy supported by decorative brackets. The ninth bay, representing the west extension to the south extension, has a pair of similar four-light windows. The west elevation of the south extension is recessed one-bay and has an off-center window similar to those at the facade. The two southern bays of the core extend to a shaped neo-Spanish style frontone. The north elevation has a central cargo entrance similar to those at the side elevations.

The interior plan consists of a passenger lobby at the south end of the building that is flanked to the west by two small ancillary rooms. Two rooms are located to the north of the lobby at the southern end of the core. The easternmost of these rooms appears to have originally served as a passenger waiting room and the westernmost as a ticket office. A secondary corridor and room located to the north of the easternmost room extends into a large cargo room at the north end of the building. A smaller closet is partitioned at the southwest corner of the cargo area. The three southern rooms and the secondary corridor are finished with beaded board ceilings and walls and have exposed wood floors. The three southern rooms also have molded window and door surrounds, molded baseboards, and chair rails. The cargo area has an exposed concrete floor, exposed concrete walls, and exposed roof truss system.

Alterations have been limited to the removal of some interior trim and doors, vandalism to all exterior windows, and the addition of a temporary wire mesh wall that subdivides the cargo area. The building is in generally fair condition, with evidence of moisture-related deterioration to interior finishes and flooring.