Built in 1887, the 5th Street Tuscumbia Railway Depot was constructed by the Memphis and Charleston Railroad to serve Tuscumbia and the surrounding area. From the 1850s until the new depot was built, ticketing and passenger activities took place at the Franklin House Hotel on the southeast corner of 5th and Water Streets, while freight and express package services operated from a wooden freight house at the north end of the rail yard. The new depot was built to meet increasing railroad traffic and included downstairs space for ticketing and express baggage and an upstairs division headquarters. After the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was purchased by the Southern Railway, the original main line was removed and the track was relaid around town to reach new railway machine shops at Sheffield. Southern Railway then built a new depot at the west end of 1st Street and intended to tear down the 5th Street Depot, but because the 1st Street Depot lacked accessibility, the City of Tuscumbia sued. After losing in court, the city appealed to the State Railroad Commission, which allowed the 5th Street Station to return to use. For nearly twenty years, Tuscumbia's two depots and Sheffield Union Station operated in a cumbersome arrangement, but by 1948 the inefficiency of maintaining three depots within a 5 mile area burdened Southern Railway's modernization, and the depots were replaced. The 1st Street Station and Sheffield Union Station were demolished, while the 5th Street Station was set aside for use by the city as a senior citizens center. On July 14, 1948, the last train left 5th Street Station, ending more than a century of railroad service to Tuscumbia. A new station on Shop Pike and 10th Street in Sheffield then served as the Sheffield Railway Depot until passenger service on the Southern Railway ended. After later serving as a restaurant, that Sheffield depot was eventually demolished, while the 5th Street Station, the last remaining depot in the Tuscumbia-Sheffield area, was renovated in the 1990s and became a railway museum in the early 2000s.