The Restored Chase Depot and Static Displays
The
location of the Chase depot
is
unique in the fact that it is located at a place where two railroads converge to within a
few feet of each other. One line, what is now
Norfolk Southern Railroad, ran between the
cities of Memphis, Tennessee and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The other railroad ran between
Dechard, Tennessee and Gadsden, Alabama (with the help of a ferry boat that traversed the
Tennessee River from Hobbs Island down to Guntersville). When the ferry was unloaded
at Guntersville, the passengers re-boarded the train and travelled through the towns
of Albertville, Boaz and Attalla on their way to Gadsden. Here the N.C. & St. L. met up with
a heavily travelled mainline railroad. This no doubt made for a very
interesting train ride. 
The depot, located at
Chase, Alabama, has been restored to an in-use condition with its waiting room, freight
room and agent's office serving as display areas for various railroad photographs and
artifacts depicting railroad history in and of the North Alabama and South Central
Tennessee area. The depot also houses the library for now, where members can check out
books, videos and other railroad related material. Since the depot served more than one
railroad, that made it a union depot,
possibly the smallest existing union depot in the country. To further complete the depot
motif, a 100 year old signal post was errected and train order signals were placed atop
the pole. Today, when the train leaves the arms are dropped by the station agent
through a cable system to
let the engineer know all of the passengers are accounted for and the train is free to
depart. Originally, this signal had a lattern at the top of the post that shown through
the lenses. Pity the person whose duty it was to place and retrive the lattern. This
train order signal with red and green lenses was only used to signify if the train was to
stop at the depot and
receive orders, it did not indictate the position of other trains.
When the depot was at it's most active period, this was the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad, which later was acquired by L & N (and ultimately CSX Transportation). The fact that the Chase depot was located here was no accident or whim. One of the Chase brothers, who was in the nursery business in the 1880's, was said to have been traveling through the area by rail and noticed that the spot would make a very good place on which to locate a nursery and ship his stock via rail in a multitude of directions. Mr. Chase bought the property and built a depot in the early 1900's (not the one standing today) and so the Chase depot and the Chase area got its name. At one time, the Chase Nursery was one of the largest nurseries in the country. The present Chase depot was also built by the Chase family in 1937. In fact, some of the wood from the original depot can be seen in the freight room of the present depot. The Chase depot is leased from Madison County through a long-term lease arrangement.
| Street address: North Alabama Railroad Museum, Inc. 694 Chase Road "The Historic Chase Community" Huntsville, Alabama |
Mailing address: North Alabama Railroad Museum, Inc. P.O. Box 4163 Huntsville, Alabama 35815-4163 Phone: 256-851-6276 (NARM) |
Last updated 02/07/2001