Boones Mill, VA depot preservation

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Boones Mill depot may get fresh burst of steam
Boones Mill has offered land to relocate the depot, but it will cost about $100,000 to move it. A local resident has taken up the cause.
By Amy Matzke-Fawcett
981-3336


REBECCA BARNETT | The Roanoke Times
Norfolk Southern will sell the Boones Mill depot for $1, but it will cost an estimated $100,000 to move it.
Courtesy of Special Collections University Libraries Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
This is a 1907 photo of the Boones Mill's railroad depot; the structure likely was built in the 1880s.
REBECCA BARNETT | The Roanoke Times
 
Lois Slotnick of Boones Mill is working to save the town's railroad depot, which sits on land owned by Norfolk Southern. The structure is on Virginia's endangered sites list. "I love railroads," Slotnick said. "I would just feel horrible if I would see this thing got torn down."
 
BOONES MILL -- With its peeling paint, broken windows and graffiti, the Boones Mill train depot called to Lois Slotnick for more than 20 years. 
 
She drove past it at least once a week and always lamented the deterioration, she said. 
"I was always looking at the building and worrying because the building wasn't being cared for," she said. 
 
She had called Norfolk Southern Corp., which owns the depot and the land it sits on, three years ago, and the railroad had offered to sell it to her for $1 -- as long as she moved it. 
So Slotnick waited and thought, until November when she called Norfolk Southern again to ask for a compromise. Instead, she learned the depot was scheduled for demolition this year. 
 
The building also caught the attention of Preservation Virginia, which named the depot to its Most Endangered Historic Sites list earlier this month. 
 
Norfolk Southern leased the building to Southern States for storage until about a year ago, NS spokesman Robin Chapman wrote in an email. 
 
"When the lease was terminated, the building was in poor shape," Chapman wrote. "Because it was close to tracks, it was of limited utility, and NS had no need for it."
Based on similar situations, NS officials were worried it would become a safety and liability issue and attract vagrants because it would be difficult for the railroad to monitor, Chapman wrote. 
 
"This building, this station was the center of the world for everybody that lived within 35 miles of Boones Mill," Slotnick said. "I couldn't see it demolished." 
 
So she approached the town government for help. The town has offered Slotnick two sites for the depot, but she must raise the funds to move it, town manager Lynn Frith said. 
"It's a big part of the town's history, and it needs to be preserved," Frith said. "We want to help in any way the town can." 
 
Norfolk Southern and the town have a verbal agreement that the building will not be demolished, Chapman said. A formal agreement will be signed later.
 
Boones Mill has offered two sites - one up the hill from the depot's current site, at the intersection of Boones Mill Road and Church Hill Street, and another a quarter of a mile away in the former American Homes industrial complex - but the work can't go forward until the money is raised. 
 
Estimates from moving companies put the cost at about $100,000 to move the depot, pour a new foundation, and make it watertight. 
 
Slotnick is setting up a nonprofit organization to manage the project and collect donations. Until the nonprofit is operational - which could take months - donations are being accepted at Boones Mill town hall. 
 
People, freight, cattle, produce, news, mail and anything else residents needed came through the building, and three train tracks ran past the building. Only one track is operational today, and eight to 10 trains travel past each day. 
 
Slotnick and her husband, Jerry, have found written records from the depot that date to 1907, but they think it was built sometime in the 1880s, she said. The station may have last been used in the 1950s or as late as the 1970s, the couple said. 
 
"We're in the process of just beginning to investigate this," she said.
 
Inside, the floors and walls are sturdy but covered in peeling paint, and more windows are broken than intact.
 
The site was nominated by the Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation after Slotnick contacted the O. Winston Link Museum for help and was put in touch with Alison Blanton, president of the Roanoke group. 
 
The Roanoke Valley Preservation Foundation, which will announce its own list of endangered sites later this month, will act as a support system for Slotnick's group, Blanton said. 
 
"[The listing] underscores the fact that it really is in danger and could help to bring attention to it," she said.
 
Preservation Virginia's list doesn't provide the protection a listing on the National Historic Register would, but it helps raise awareness and bring people together to save the structure, said Sarah Whiting, director of community resources and outreach, for the preservation group. 
 
The building is a good example of a structure from its era, Whiting said.
 
"It's not anything fancy, but it's amazing how we're realizing now there's beauty in the ordinary," she said. "This is a great example of an everyday depot that was used and loved in a small town."
 
There were about 20 entries for the preservation society's list this year, and each one was considered individually by a group of architects, preservationists and others who consider the importance of the building, the uniqueness of the structure, the amount the structure is endangered, and ways and feasibility of saving the building, Whiting said.
 
The Boones Mill depot is representative of how many small towns are reclaiming their history, she said. 
 
The town of Pulaski was given an award last year by Preservation Virginia for restoring its depot after a fire gutted the building in 2009. 
 
"We have seen other small town depots being restored, and it's a sign of the times in a way," Whiting said. "They're really good adaptive re-use projects." 
 
Source: http://www.roanoke.com/news/breaking/wb/308911
As of: May 17, 2012
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