Former Piedmont and Northern Railroad Station in SC
Greer Depot, Greer South Carolina
The Greer Depot was designed by Charles Christian Hook of Charlotte, North Carolina, and was constructed ca. 1913 as a combination passenger station and freight warehouse for the Piedmont and Northern Railway. The depot and rail line were instrumental in helping service both the rapidly increasing population and manufacturing needs of the area. The growth in Greer and in upper South Carolina was primarily the result of the establishment of several textile mills in the area from the 1890s to the 1920s. The depot was also the center of local government since the second story room was the Greer City Hall until the 1930s. The building is architecturally unique in Greer both in style and as the last surviving railroad depot of the five original two-story depots built for the Piedmont and Northern Railway.
Greer was established in 1873 as a flag station on the Atlanta and Charlotte Airline Railway. A second railroad serving Greer, the Greenville, Spartanburg, and Anderson Railway Company, was chartered as an electric railroad in 1910 by James B. Duke of Southern Power Company (now Duke Power Company). This railroad company acquired the right-of-way in the public square of Greer in June 1912 and began construction of rail lines and this passenger/freight depot. The company was absorbed by the Piedmont and Northern Railway in 1914, which continued passenger service until October 1951.
The Piedmont and Northern Railway was merged into the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad in 1969 and the Greer Depot was in use until 1984 when it was acquired by the Greenville County Redevelopment Authority. The Greenville County Redevelopment Authority plans to rehabilitate the depot through private enterprise as a means to further the redevelopment of Greer's central business district.
The Greer Depot was the halfway point on the railroad between Greenville and Spartanburg. The Piedmont and Northern Railway was one of the first electric railroad systems built to main-line steam railroad standards. Its motto was "The Great Electric System of the South", and it was the largest electric rail system in the region. The depot at Greer provided an important transportation and commercial link to other towns and industries along the 101-mile route. In the depot's early days, eighteen passenger and four freight trains a day stopped there. The Piedmont and Northern was one of the few electric railroads which carried freight as well as passengers. The depot warehouse also served as a distribution point for the Greer peach industry and as a distribution and receiving center for the local textile mills.
The second story of the Greer Depot was built specifically for use by the Greer Town Council. It served as the Greer City Hall until the 1930s and city records were stored there until the 1950s.
Charles Christian Hook of the architectural firm of Hook and Rogers of Charlotte designed the Greer Depot and the other four Piedmont and Northern Railway stations along the line, as well as many other significant buildings in the Charlotte area. The Greer Depot is the last surviving example of the five original two-story depots on the Piedmont and Northern Railway and is significant to Greer as the last surviving depot in the town.
Building Description
The Greer Depot is located in the central business district: of Greer at 311 Trade Street. The south facade faces onto the railroad right-of-way and track area. The depot was built for the Piedmont and Northern Railway as a passenger and freight station and also provided space for the town council of Greer. The building was constructed ca. 1913.
The Greer Depot is a masonry building which combines a one-story warehouse and a two-story station. The rectangular building is 166 feet long. The yellow brick exterior is set on top of a wider red brick base and is laid in stretcher bond. The red clay tile hip roof is supported by a heavy wood truss and timber plank system. Two brick chimneys are placed on the east roof slope of the station section. Cross gable attic vents are evenly spaced along the roof ridge of the warehouse section. Similar vents are used in the station roof. The wide eaves which shelter a seven-foot-wide dock located on the south and east elevations are supported by undecorated timber brackets. All windows are double-hung and have projecting precast concrete sills and lintels. The majority of the first floor windows have fixed sash transoms. The window openings are currently boarded over. Exterior wooden doors have large transoms similar to those on the windows. The nine warehouse bays utilize six flexible gates and three sliding dock doors. The south elevation features a projecting stationmaster's bay between the passenger rooms and the warehouse, with a view of the railroad track in both directions. This bay terminates in a red-tiled gable roof.
The floors of the two waiting rooms are concrete, while all other floors are wood. The waiting rooms, station office, and second floor have plaster walls, while the secured storage area has undressed wooden walls. The warehouse walls feature brick covered by a heavy wooden wainscoting. All of the high ceilings, excluding those in the open warehouse area, are wooden. The wooden truss system is visible in the warehouse area. A straight wooden stairway, which can only be reached from an outside entrance, leads to the second floor of the station.
Two bricked-in warehouse bays, which are difficult to distinguish from the rest of the north elevation, are apparently the only exterior alterations. Disrepair and some vandalism caused the owners to recently board up the windows and doors.
Alterations to the interior include the lowering of the station office ceiling, the closing of an entrance from the station office to the warehouse office, the enclosure of the ticket booth, and the removal of the second story free-standing stove.
The majority of the buildings surrounding the depot are commercial, with one manufacturing and one governmental building in the immediate vicinity. A number of buildings in the adjacent central business district have been rehabilitated or are undergoing rehabilitation.