Atlantic Coast Line Depot

The Atlantic Coast Line Depot stood behind Broad Street near the tracks between Depot Avenue and Depot Lane. The Alabama Midland Railway, later known as the Atlantic Coast Line, completed its tracks across Dale County in September 1889. Ozark’s businesses doubled in anticipation of the depot’s arrival by 1889 and between 1890 and 1920, while Dale County’s population grew by approximately 32 percent. The railroad connected the rural community to Alabama and the nation. The original wooden depot, within a block of the public square, burned in 1910, and a new brick depot opened with the arrival of the morning train on September 5, 1911. Soldiers used the depot in three conflicts: on June 26, 1916, Company G, 4th Alabama Infantry and the National Guard Band departed for mobilization in Montgomery and duty along the U.S.-Mexican border; when Camp Rucker opened in the spring of 1942, officers and draftees of the 81st Infantry arrived there; and on September 16, 1950, the Headquarters and Headquarters Company 131st Heavy Tank Battalion of the National Guard departed for Fort Knox, Kentucky. Passenger travel from the depot ceased in the 1960s, and the building remained until its demolition in January 2018.

Ozark, Alabama · United States