This is a rough transcript.
This is, I think, really the perfect example of illustrating a city that grew up along the Western & Atlantic Railroad.
If you stand right here, we’ve got the train depot right behind us. And what else you might notice about this is all the buildings in the town square are facing the train tracks, and they’re facing the train depot. The train — and the railroad — was at the center of the community. It stood at the center; when the trains came in, that was the big happening of the moment.
And this depot was quite fascinating for up and down the line on the railroad here. It’s largely an antebellum depot. And a lot of it is actually original brick that was built in the 1850s. It was damaged during the war, obviously, as everything was, and it was patched, and it was rebuilt. And it was expanded over the years, there was actually a freight shed that came in this direction that was torn down in the 1970s.
…There’s a couple of originals that are still around, I’m gonna point them out as we go up — Calhoun, and we’re not gonna get to Ringgold today, but Ringold is also largely original depot.
But I think Cartersville is also an important community for talking about business opportunities that people had up and down and along the railroad. We talked at Moon Station about wood and water stations and how that was a business opportunity. People could chop down trees, and they could sell to the railroad, and they can make 250 a cord.
One of the other great opportunities that people had was hotels.
If you think about it, travelers would be taking the train — they might arrive in a town late at night. They would need a place to stay. If they were on a business trip, if they were going and visiting family maybe. Or maybe they had to continue their journey, not on the train; they would need a place to stay.
And Cartersville was no different.