Lee Hall Depot a candidate for preservation

Chesapeake and Ohio Historical Magazine, May 2000 by Hallett, Stuart

LEE HALL DEPOT A CANDIDATE FOR PRESERVATION

Newport News Daily Press, Feb. 21, 2000 submitted by Stuart Hallett

The tracks of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway forever changed Newport News from depressed farm country of the post-Civil War era into an industrial engine by the 1900s. Despite its significance, only the Lee Hall depot remains from the founding days of the once all-important C&O railroad. Since 1993, the depot has been little more than a brightly painted, oversized storage shed and home to a group of model railroaders.

City officials want to change that. They want to preserve the 119-year-old depot and turn it into a museum. But first they have to move it.

The move will cost $1.2 million. City Council members are expected to approve an application for a $750,000 federal transportation grant at their meeting on Tuesday. City officials are already seeking a $250,000 state grant. The city will contribute $100,000 worth of land and $100,000 of services.

"The Lee Hall train station is a landmark for Newport News," said John Quarstein, director of the city's museums. "For Newport News not to work toward preserving it, we would miss the opportunity to tell the story of how we changed from an agrarian society to what we are today. The railroad is what got it going."

Quarstein said CSX has agreed to donate the depot to the city but wants it moved for safety reasons. The depot sits between two tracks, including CSX's main line, where trains roll along at speeds reaching 79 m.p.h. If full funding is received, Quarstein figures the depot could be moved sometime in the spring of 2001.

Preliminary planning calls for the depot to be moved in three sections by rail about a half mile up Warwick Boulevard to a two-acre site on Carleton Farms, the future city-owned industrial park. City officials have yet to approve the location.

Built in 1881, the Lee Hall depot is one of only two train stations of its kind still standing in the state, according to Thomas Dixon, chairman of the C&O Historical Society in Clifton Forge.

The other station is in Providence Forge, a town about 15 miles east of Richmond. Russell Callaway, an auto-garage owner, said he is working with CSX and the New Kent Historical Society to relocate and preserve that station, but he doesn't know if the building is sturdy enough to be moved.

According to the Newport News grant application, the Lee Hall depot will feature three galleries - an interactive display designed for children, showing the workings and importance of railroads; an exhibit explaining how the railroad changed Lee Hall; and an exhibit about the 1862 Peninsula Campaign of the Civil War.