Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 1, 1991 TAG: 9103010367
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ROCKY MOUNT LENGTH: Medium
Local business leaders have discussed renovating the frame building as a restaurant or community center. Three years ago, a local artist envisioned the depot as the centerpiece of a revitalized downtown business district.
But the 79-year-old depot may soon go the way of the steam engine.
"We all hate to see it torn down," said Dr. J. Francis Amos, a local historian. "It's irreplaceable. We'll never have another depot in Franklin County."
Norfolk Southern Corp., the successor to N&W, plans to raze the depot.
The railroad offered to donate the building to the town, provided the structure were moved to another site.
But the depot has fallen into such a state of disrepair that town officials believe the only way to move it would be to dismantle it piece by piece - an expensive proposition.
"We would love to renovate it, but it is in such terrible shape," said Dorothy Cundiff, director of the Franklin County Merchants and Businessmen's Association. "We're all hurting because it's going to go."
Norfolk Southern spokesman Don Piedmont said the depot is to be demolished this spring. No contract has been signed, he said.
N&W was not the first railroad to build a depot in Rocky Mount.
A Franklin & Pittsylvania Railroad terminal built around the turn of the century was located on Franklin Street, at the present site of Haywood Jewelers, according to Cundiff.
In 1912, N&W built a combination freight and passenger depot down the street from the F&P depot. The dimensions were 24 feet by 154 feet. The frame building with slate roof cost $15,507, according to Piedmont.
Cundiff said the business community might have raised enough money to renovate the depot on its present site. But because the railroad wanted it off its property, the cost of moving and buying land would be prohibitive, she said.
"Progress comes along, and the old history goes away," she said. "It's sad."
by CNB