Top Historic Sites in Savannah | Central of Georgia Depot and Trainshed

Central of Georgia Depot and Trainshed

655 Louisville Rd, Savannah, GA 31401, United States

Central Georgia Depot and Trainshed is a former passenger depot and train station built in 1860 by the Central Georgia Railway (CofG) prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War. This pair of buildings was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976, a list that was extended to the Central Georgia Railroad in 1978: Savannah Shops and Terminal Facilities.

Location

Located in the northwest corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Louisville Road in the historic city centre, the CofG’s red brick passenger terminal is home to the Savannah Visitor Center and the Savannah History Museum.

 The site complex comprises several remarkable structures, including a cotton yard, a blacksmith shop, a brick viaduct and a train station, as well as an office car and a caboose. It is owned by the Coastal Heritage Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of the cultural heritage of coastal Georgia and adjacent regions.

The Museum of History of Savannah is located at 303 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard (Georgia State Road 25 Connector). The museum is located inside the old passenger terminal. It contains artifacts and exhibits relating to the history of Savannah from its establishment to the present time. Shops and terminals were listed separately on 2 June 1978, and the Coastal Heritage Society opened the museum on site in 1989.

Significance

Central Georgia Trainshed was completed in 1861 as the last major feature of the depot complex. Its designer was Augustus Schwaab, a German immigrant who was a company engineer and later became one of the city’s most prominent builders. Schwaab’s foreign-training probably accounts for the unusual configuration of the roof trusses of the building. The radial connection between the cast iron compression member and the wrought iron lower chord differs from that used in America and is more characteristic of French and German practices. 

These tri-composite trusses of wood, wrought iron and cast iron are rare documents of early use of structural ironwork. 

The Georgia Central Terminal and the Savannah Train Station are part of one of the early attempts to build a comprehensive railway terminal and shopping complex in this country. The structure of the trench is the oldest reminiscent of early iron roof construction, the first step in the evolution of modern steel frame construction methods.