The Nation's Only Surviving Antebellum Railroad Complex
Near Tybee Island, Georgia
Construction on this passenger depot began before the Civil War, but the Civil War interrupted the work before the head house was even finished. The building stood unfinished and decaying for years. When the railroad finally resumed construction after the war, it completed what had already become something remarkable: many original structures from the eighteen-fifties, including a massive roundhouse, a working turntable, and a tall brick smokestack.
Today this complex is the most complete antebellum railroad facility still standing anywhere in the United States. It is a National Historic Landmark and now operates as the Georgia State Railroad Museum. The Central of Georgia Railway that built it was organized in eighteen thirty-three and once stretched over five hundred miles across the state.
