A place in peril

Contributed Auburn Villager The old Auburn railroad station.

Where student cheers could once be heard, there is silence. Only animals and dead insects inhabit the building. Most people don't realize that this apparently abandoned building was once the center of Auburn life.

The building is the old Auburn Railroad Depot, fast crumbling into obscurity. In an attempt to preserve the building and publicize its plight, the Auburn Heritage Association and the City of Auburn's Historic Preservation Commission nominated the depot for the 2010 Places in Peril list. The list, compiled by the Alabama Historical Commission and the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation, helps preserve historic landmarks that otherwise might be lost.

Located on Mitcham Avenue, between North College Street and North Gay Street, the depot's downtown location made it the hub of Auburn's social, cultural and business life in the old days.

"It's how everyone came into town," said Mary Norman, president of the Auburn Heritage Association. "The railroad was a major factor in developing Auburn. It was a major population center for many years. It is an older structure, and it has changed over the years, but it's still a significant structure."

Hints of former style

That all stopped when the last train ticket was sold in 1970. Now, the paint is worn, the ceiling is falling in, weeds and uncut grass choke the back of the lot, windows are broken and the soffits are rotting.

Hints of the station's former style remain. A typical example of Victorian railroad architecture, the one-story Richardson Romanesque-styled station boasts long hip roofs, deep eaves, dormers, finials, rounded arches over the windows and flat lintels.

The depot has sat vacant for seven years. The last tenant was a real estate company, which occupied the building for 20 years.

"I would love for someone to purchase it and rehab it," Norman said. "The owner does virtually no maintenance on the building."

The depot and the Spur gas station next door are listed on city records as being owned by MRT LLC. According to the secretary of state's corporation records, the principal of MRT LLC is a Montgomery attorney by the name of Ronald Russell.

The two properties have been for sale off and on since 2003. At first the gas station wasn't a part of the sale, then it was, and now it isn't again. The current asking price for the depot alone is $1.2 million.

The City of Auburn attempted to purchase the property a few years ago, but to no avail. Phase I of an environmental site assessment was completed, but the owners and city were unable to agree on who was going to pay for the second phase, according to Carl Morgan, assistant planning director for Auburn.

"Nothing has been confirmed, but from what I understand, there are potential issues with the gas tanks under the gas station and diesel fuel spillage into the soil from the train," Morgan said.

The owners could not be reached for comment, but both Norman and Morgan said they were puzzled about the property's steep selling price.

In the nomination packet compiled to earn the depot inclusion on the Places in Peril list, Norman wrote, "It is difficult to characterize the attitude of the owners" regarding the situation.

David Dorton, Auburn's director of public affairs, said the city hasn't been in contact with MRT, LLC since the offer in 2007. Other interested parties have asked to be put in contact with the owners, however.

"We are not privy to any knowledge regarding the status or the sale of the property," Dorton said.

Another concern

Another concern about the site is the question of what could be built on the site if the depot is torn down. That area of North College lies in the North College Street Historic District, which might make it difficult to erect a new building because of Historic District guidelines, Dorton said.

"If the building were to be demolished, the property could only be developed up to existing zoning standards," Dorton said. "There are a lot of things that make this building non-conforming. If the building were to go down, the value would go down because you couldn't really build anything else up to code in that small space."

He said maintaining the property is key to maintaining its value.

"We're really excited that it was included on the list," he said. "Hopefully, it will bring awareness to people statewide, and we hope more people will come in and look at the property."

Rich history

The site's rich history starts just eight years after Auburn was incorporated in 1839. Three railroad depots serving the Montgomery-to-West Point railroad have been built upon that spot in the center of town.

The previous two burned down. The first depot fell victim to Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau's Union Raiders during the Civil War. They tore up the track between Loachapoka and Auburn to disrupt the vital rail traffic between Atlanta and the Confederate armory in Selma during the siege of Atlanta. The second depot fire was started by a lighting strike.

The railroad was used for trade, mail and to bring tourists as well as students to town, and was the main transportation between the college town of Auburn and the thriving city of Opelika, seven miles away.

Jefferson Davis, president of the doomed Confederacy, even visited the first depot in February of 1861, as he traveled to Montgomery to assume office. Davis reviewed the Auburn Guards, and a boulder with a plaque recalling his visit lies in the shade of the building.

One of Auburn University's oldest traditions, the Wreck Tech Pajama Parade, got its start at the train station.

In 1980, local historian Ann Pearson wrote about the train station's history in the old Auburn Bulletin newspaper. She described how Auburn students greased the railroad tracks as a prank on the onboard passengers when Georgia Tech came to Auburn to compete.

When Tech returned two years later, Pearson wrote, the students planned to do the same, but word had gotten out that college administrators were on the lookout. Instead of greasing the tracks, students went to the depot in their pajamas for a boisterous pep rally.

Pearson's article also describes an incident with the circus. According to Auburn legend, she said, students were charged $1 instead of the advertised 50-cent fee at the circus door. Not amused, the students stretched a rope from the big tent to the midnight train. Needless to say, the circus left town ahead of schedule.

The second station burned down in 1904. The lightning strike that claimed the second depot also killed a mule, according to Pearson's article.

Inexorable change

For the third station, the architects used brick walls and a bell-cast hipped roof to lessen the chances of the building suffering the fiery fate of the first two.

During its busiest years, the station had eight trains per day stopping in.

The 1960s brought profound change to Auburn and Auburn University, including racial desegregation--and the closing of the station. Pearson cites planes, cars and buses as the reasons the station started to lose $130,000 per day. The depot shut down for good in 1970.

The building has been used mainly as a real estate office since then, until the early 2000s.

Now the station sits empty and abandoned, waiting not for the next train to stop by, but for the next phase in its life. If a passerby doesn't pay close attention, the building can escape notice, blending into the background of the surrounding buildings.

The passenger trains might be gone, but the depot that served them for so many years doesn't have to be.