The Tennessee and Alabama Railroad connected the town of Thompson to Nashville in 1855 and south to Columbia in 1859, fulfilling antebellum investors’ hopes for a link between rapidly expanding Nashville and the Tennessee River at Decatur, Alabama, through some of the most productive lands in Davidson, Williamson, Maury, and Giles counties. The railroad strengthened the local economy by enabling farmers to ship grain, including German millet, tobacco, cotton, and livestock to distant markets. After being destroyed during the Civil War, a new station was built in 1866 for about $600. By 1877, Thompson’s Station had become a growing railroad trade center for southern Williamson County, with about 300 people, four stores, a drug store, a steam flouring mill, a post office, and several churches clustered around the tracks. An early morning fire on February 14, 1889, destroyed the entire business section of the village except for the Building of McIntosh & Thompsons, and most businesses were never rebuilt. Even so, a surviving 1905 ledger book shows substantial goods still being received by downtown merchants such as William Veeners, A.B. Epps, J.E. Howard, and J.O. Grigsby. The Thompson Station Bank, built in 1913, is the only surviving early 20th century commercial building. The bank closed in 1927 as a changing rural economy, falling farm prices in the 1920s, and the growing use of cars and trucks to move goods and people displaced the railroad. The Thompson’s Station Depot was torn down in 1952, and after Thompson’s Station was incorporated in 1990, the depot was rebuilt in 1993 as a symbol of the town’s past and future.