Passenger and Freight Train Station in GA

Summerville Depot, Summerville Georgia

Date added: December 15, 2023 Categories: Georgia Train Station Passenger Station Freight Station

South (entrance) and east facades (1991)

The history of the Summerville Depot begins nearly eighty years before this building was erected. It starts with the opening of the area for white settlement.

On the last Friday of 1838, Governor George Gilmer signed a bill creating Chattooga County from the northern portion of Floyd County and the southern portion of Walker County. The need for a county seat thus became the issue of the day. Eventually, a site owned by General John F. Beavers was selected, a site which provided ready access to General Beavers' "Big Spring." (General Beavers' house in what is now Fulton County. He later moved to Texas.) The town, originally chartered as Selma, Georgia, officially became known as Summerville on March 11^th, 1840. The citizens of the county were primarily engaged in agriculture, although the seat of government was located only a few miles south of the site where, by 1845, the prosperous Trion Factory would be established.

Although the Summerville Railroad was chartered in 1874, it was not until 1888, thanks to the advocacy of influential citizens of Summerville and Trion, that the Chattanooga, Rome, and Columbus Railroad made its first run through Chattooga County. This railroad ran up the western edge of Georgia, not far from its border with Alabama in many spots. It would connect northwest Georgia with Atlanta via Rome. It appears that until that time the only public transportation was provided by stagecoach lines. There was no depot in the county seat for that inaugural run but one was built shortly thereafter in the 1870s.

The railroad became the Chattanooga, Rome, and Southern Railroad in 1897, and Summerville received a new, very simple and very small, frame depot in 1897. With the coming of the twentieth century, and the construction of additional textile mills, the county began to prosper in areas other than agriculture and the railroad became more important for transporting goods and citizens. In 1901, the C R&S Railroad was sold to the Central of Georgia, one of Georgia's original three railroads created in 1833.

In late November 1917, citizens of Summerville were awakened by the Summerville Cotton Mills whistle, the town's fire alarm. The depot was on fire. Fire prevention in Summerville was primitive even for that date. (It was not until the Summerville Baptist Church and Cleghorn Store burned in the late 1930s that citizens organized a fire department). The Summerville Depot was a total loss.

The Central of Georgia commissioned a new depot almost immediately. Work was begun in February 1918 and completed on May 25^th, 1918. The work order indicates that the depot's plans were "Combination Depot Class A" from Standard Plan 8800, ICC Type III. Frame, with a cypress shingle roof." With no plumbing, but with electricity, it was to be heated by stoves. Its cost was $6800. The result was the handsome, low-slung, A-frame combination depot still seen in Summerville today.

The automobile was making headway in the county, the Cleghorn family having owned one as early as 1909. While the freight business remained important, the passenger train industry was losing ground even as the new depot was being built in Summerville. Passenger service was discontinued completely by the end of 1950.

Huge tractor-trailers and improved interstate highways began to impact the need for freight trains, and by the mid-1970s, the Summerville Depot was reduced to serving as a part-time warehouse.

The Depot served briefly during the late 1980s as a craft store, operated by Mr. and Mrs. Caswell Huff.

In 1989, the depot was acquired by the Chattooga County Historical Society, the building purchased from the Huffs and the land leased long-term from the Norfolk Southern Corporation (the successors to the Central of Georgia). Though trains between Chattanooga and Summerville are few and far between, the society is enacting its plans, backed by an enthusiastic community, to restore the depot and preserve an important part of the reason for Summerville's and Chattooga County's prosperity today. The depot will be used for meetings of the historical society (and other civic organizations); will house the society's genealogical/historical archives; and will be home to mini-museum exhibits which will help the children of the community to understand the importance of their heritage.

Building Description

The Summerville Depot, located in northwest Georgia in the small county-seat town of Summerville, is an excellent example of a combination railroad passenger and freight depot constructed in the early 1900s. It was built in the prairie style.

The depot is a frame building, one story high, hip-roofed with wide eaves, with weatherboard siding. The depot has tongue-and-groove exterior "wainscoting", six over six double-hung windows, paneled wood doors, and a bay window in the office. It contains original hardware and ornamentation. There is an inscription in the side brass door plate signed and dated 1918. The original block and tackle and telegraph key have been located and will be restored to the property.

The interior plan includes a ticket room entrance located in the southwest corner with two passenger waiting rooms located off the ticketing room. The bulk of the interior of the depot is devoted to the large freight room at the north end of the building.

The interior walls are painted tongue-and-groove boards. The freight room is not ceiled. There is four-foot-high wainscoting throughout the passenger area. The passenger waiting rooms retain their original windows and dimensions. The original windows are intact, as are the original freight room doors.

The block and tackle will be restored. The plumbing dates from the 1940s. There was no plumbing in the original 1918 structure.

The depot is located about 50 feet from Town Branch, an original source of water for Summerville. The historic landscaping noted in 1920s photograph will be duplicated in a proposed restoration.

The depot is located on East Washington Street along a historic residential street on a lot bounded on the west side by a small store building. It is two blocks from the Chattooga County Courthouse and the central business district of Summerville.

The use of the building as a crafts "boutique" in the 1980s left the structure virtually unaltered. The addition of electricity in the 1930s and plumbing in the 1940s are compatible with the design of the building.

The only major change to the building is the loss of the wooden loading dock/platform. It was 20 feet long and encircled the freight room. It will be rebuilt using a historic photograph as a model.