Newbern Depot

History

The depot was built in 1920 by the Illinois Central Railroad. The third station erected at Newbern, it replaced a wooden building that burned in 1918. The new brick facility was a combination depot that accommodated both passenger and freight services in a single one-story building, along with a railroad business office. It was built to a standard floor plan with little architectural ornamentation, but the windows and eaves show Craftsman influences. Adjacent to the depot building is a cotton-loading platform where bales of cotton were taken off wagons and transferred to railcars during the era when Newbern was a center for the cotton ginning and shipment of cotton grown in surrounding counties.

Illinois Central Railroad ceased passenger train service to the depot in 1965. The building was then used for storage until 1990, when it was acquired by the city of Newbern to create the Newbern Depot and Railroad Museum. To pay for a restoration, the town held a fundraising event, "Depot Days", which has become an annual celebration in the town. It was subsequently restored based on the original architectural drawings, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 25, 1993, as Newbern Illinois Central Depot. In 1992, Amtrak service was moved from the small stop in nearby Dyersberg to the restored Newbern Depot in order to serve both towns; it is thus sometimes called the Newbern-Dyersberg station. Amtrak's City of New Orleans train comes through twice a day; the depot is a flag stop, meaning passengers can get on or off the train, but there is no staffed ticketing or baggage service. The museum exhibits old photos, railroad tools, uniforms, schedules, and other memorabilia, along with model trains and artwork commemorating the town's railroading past.