Here’s Hoping Train Depot Gets Rebuilt

Little more than a month ago, I spent a few hours in Pulaski, Va., driving along the backroads.
I wanted to see a recent addition to the New River Trail, a linear state park that stretches nearly 60 miles from Pulaski to Galax and across the New River to Fries, Va., following the path of an abandoned railroad line.
For years, this rails-to-trails project, similar to the Virginia Creeper Trail, stopped just before coming into Pulaski, ending at Dora Junction, just off I-81’s Exit 94.
Then, earlier this year, work was finished on an extension, all the way to the grand, circa-1887 railroad depot, standing near the center of Pulaski.
Critics lauded the rail-trail’s extension as new hope for this town, lying about 90 miles northeast of Bristol.
In recent years, a constant stream of layoffs and factory closings has struck Pulaski.
Some blame economics. Some call it bad luck.
Last year, even, a young stranger told me that he had heard that a witch had put a spell on the town.
To that, I laughed.
Still, in the last 20 years, two fires have struck Pulaski’s most stately structures – strokes of bad luck, indeed.
In 1989, a fire gutted the town’s 1896 courthouse.
Then, on the morning of Nov. 17, 2008, Pulaski’s stately railroad depot – at the end of the New River Trail – was engulfed in flames.
Pulaski Fire Chief Bill Webb told reporters the stone structure was a “total loss.”
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this depot housed the Raymond F. Ratcliffe Memorial Museum, where exhibits included model railroads, books and historic photographs.
The museum itself was a model for any place – including Bristol – to show how a town’s story could be told in the rooms of a restored railroad depot.
In the fire, a few artifacts of the museum were saved and placed in storage.
As for the building itself, the damage is significant.
But hold out some hope for a reconstruction.
Consider history: the stone walls of Pulaski’s old courthouse survived the fire in 1989 and, within three years, the structure had been rebuilt and turned into a small museum.
About that same time, Pulaski’s railroad depot, once used by the Norfolk & Western Railway, was restored over a five-year period.
Today, of course, it is unfortunate that the town must face a similar challenge.
Still, for the sake of preserving a piece of the past, and even for the sake of the future of the New River Trail, let’s hope Pulaski can again show resilience.
Obviously, it may never be the same. Some priceless artifacts, of course, have been damaged or lost forever.
Yet even a partially rebuilt depot, or perhaps a replica at the same site, would be more proper for Pulaski’s historic stature than to tear down what’s left of the depot and leave a blank space at the center of town.