The 107-year-old Marlinton train depot that burned Friday morning was on the National Register of Historic Places, as one of the last remaining examples of the trademark bright-yellow stations of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway's heyday.
The 107-year-old Marlinton train depot that burned Friday morning was on the National Register of Historic Places, as one of the last remaining examples of the trademark bright-yellow stations of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway's heyday.
"It's a total loss," said Shirley Adams of the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau, which was housed in the restored depot. "We were the only existing depot that had its original furniture - all destroyed. Totally gutted."
The C&O Railway train depot in Marlinton, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, burned Friday morning.
The Hillsboro Volunteer Fire Department was called out at 5:20 a.m., Assistant Chief Brad Totten said, to help the Marlinton Volunteer Fire Department fight the fire. Firefighters did not finish at the scene until noon, he said.
He said it is not yet known what caused the fire.
"There's no indication at all," Totten said. The state fire marshal's office is investigating.
The county of fewer than 8,600 people had worked for years to restore the depot, a relic of the county's turn-of-the-century timber boom.
The C&O Railway laid the Marlinton track - and built the station - after a large paper mill (now the MeadWestvaco mill) was built across the border in Covington, Va., in 1898. The track carried Pocahontas County timber and passengers over the mountains, south to the Greenbrier County town of Ronceverte, and on to the mill.
The daily round-trip passenger service lasted until 1958. Freight service lasted into the 1970s. Then most of the C&O's distinctive stations were torn down. The Marlinton station survived with all of its characteristic architecture intact, including Victorian bracketed eaves and gable tracery, a bay window and multipane glass transoms.
The 107-year-old Marlinton train depot that burned Friday morning was on the National Register of Historic Places, as one of the last remaining examples of the trademark bright-yellow stations of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway's heyday.
"It's a total loss," said Shirley Adams of the Pocahontas County Convention and Visitors Bureau, which was housed in the restored depot. "We were the only existing depot that had its original furniture - all destroyed. Totally gutted."
The Hillsboro Volunteer Fire Department was called out at 5:20 a.m., Assistant Chief Brad Totten said, to help the Marlinton Volunteer Fire Department fight the fire. Firefighters did not finish at the scene until noon, he said.
He said it is not yet known what caused the fire.
"There's no indication at all," Totten said. The state fire marshal's office is investigating.
The county of fewer than 8,600 people had worked for years to restore the depot, a relic of the county's turn-of-the-century timber boom.
The C&O Railway laid the Marlinton track - and built the station - after a large paper mill (now the MeadWestvaco mill) was built across the border in Covington, Va., in 1898. The track carried Pocahontas County timber and passengers over the mountains, south to the Greenbrier County town of Ronceverte, and on to the mill.
The daily round-trip passenger service lasted until 1958. Freight service lasted into the 1970s. Then most of the C&O's distinctive stations were torn down. The Marlinton station survived with all of its characteristic architecture intact, including Victorian bracketed eaves and gable tracery, a bay window and multipane glass transoms.
The depot contained the original desks, chairs and cabinets, plus the ticket windows and red-painted semaphore levers, according to the depot's historic register filing.
Friday morning's fire destroyed the newer furnishings, too, including the CVB's computers. But by the opening of the business day Friday, neighbors had supplied the CVB with temporary office space in a bed-and-breakfast, reconnected the phone line there and moved in donated furniture.
"The community - you would not believe - God bless them," Adams said.
The community had gotten a grant to re-roof the depot, she said, which local people hope they might be allowed to use to rebuild the depot.
The Pocahontas Times plans to sell photos of the depot before it burned on its Web site, pocahontastimes.com, and donate at least part of the proceeds to the depot's foundation for rebuilding, Editor Pam Pritt said.
The fire did not reach nearby buildings, said Cookie Turner, an employee at C.J. Richardson Hardware next door.
The depot is the area's second member of the National Register of Historic Places to burn within the past month. Fire damaged Stuart Manor, the oldest inhabited house in Greenbrier County, on Feb. 28.
To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, use e-mail or call 348-5189.
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