Mayfield, KY: IC Depot and Freight House and Dec 10, 2021 EF4 Tornado

Depot: (Satellite, the storage shed by the tracks replaced the depot.)

Freight House: (Satellite)

Illinois Central Railroad Scrapbook posted

About two years ago the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library posted thousands on Flickr.  Most of these were taken by Barriger while on business trips across the country.  Included in the group was this shot of IC's passenger depot in Mayfield, KY.  Mayfield is about 25 miles south of Paducah on the IC's Louisville-Paducah-Fulton mainline.  As with most of Barriger's photos this one is undated but I'm guesstimating it was taken circa 1935.  The photo was taken from the observation platform of a northbound passenger train (many of Barriger's photos were taken from the rear observation deck.  Check out this article which explains why Barriger took so many photos  http://trn.trains.com/.../john-walker-barriger-iii-he...).  

I lived just outside of Mayfield for five years and during that time found exactly ONE photo of the Mayfield depot (and it was in the IC's employee magazine, showing the depot empty and deserted just before it was demolished c.1960).

This photo is interesting to me because it illustrates the daily activities around the depot.  It appears a few folks are still standing on the depot after the train departed.  A few cars are parked outside the depot, perhaps waiting to pick someone up.  Cars are zipping across the tracks now that the train has cleared, and there is a couple walking along the tracks, and even a guy on a bicycle riding along the tracks.

There is a Depot Street in Mayfield, but the passenger depot was actually located on West Broadway.  The freight house, however,was on Depot Street, apparently built on the site of the original passenger depot (the depot seen in the photo was built circa 1916).

Passenger service through Mayfield ended in 1957 and around 1983 ICG abandoned the line from a few miles south of Mayfield all the way to Fulton.  Then in 1986 the remaining Mayfield-Paducah branch was sold to the newly formed Paducah & Louisville Railway.  

Today the site of the passenger depot (on West Broadway) is occupied by Myers Lumber.  The concrete foundation for the freight house (at the end of Depot Street) still exists and can clearly be seen on satellite photos.  As for John W. Barriger III, he died in 1976.  Barriger will probably be best remembered for his distinguished career as a railroad executive, but his photos have created a priceless resource for railroad historians.

NOTE:  I am not in any way claiming any type of copyright ownership to the attached photo.  I cleaned it up a bit and added the identifying caption simply so that if/when someone steals (uh, I mean, "shares") the photo, folks will know who made the photograph.

Paul Jervet shared
Mayfield KY (1935)

While looking for the depot and freight house on a satellite map, I noticed a lot of vacant land. That is normally a sign of a poor town. But then I remembered that Mayfield was the Kentucky town that got wiped out by an EF4 tornado. I'm saving this satellite image excerpt because the storage shed along the tracks is the building referred to in the satellite information at the top of these notes.

Satellite

The street view from Broadway taken in Aug 2019 shows that storage shed. But when I looked from South Street, the depot's land was back down to just the foundation because the view was taken after the tornado cleanup.

Street View, Dec 2022

State Farm, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As I normally do for notes about a depot, I looked at the 1950s topo map.

1952 Mayfield Quad @ 24,000

While checking out what was left of the tracks north of Broadway, I discovered that there are not only a couple of transloading (team) tracks, they are being used. I didn't recognize what type of freight cars were spotted there.

Although the odds were small that the cars would be in a street view because it would have a different date, I tried anyhow. The tracks had cars and they were empty lumber cars. I think that is what is also in the above satellite image. It makes sense that a lot of lumber had to be hauled into the town to rebuild it.

Street View, Dec 2022

This is the previous view from that spot.

Street View, Aug 2012

As I normally do with depot notes, I checked out the towns grain elevators. Crop Production Services has some big bins, but no rail service.

Satellite

The grain elevator on the south side of town was deja vu.

Satellite

That is because it was part of my study on metal bins vs. concrete silos:

The Farmer's life shared via Dennis DeBruler