The Huntsville Depot held Confederate prisoners in 1862

The Huntsville Depot is the oldest surviving railroad depot in Alabama and one of the oldest in the United States. Completed in 1860, the depot served as the eastern division headquarters for the Memphis and Charleston Railroad. It is listed on both the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1862, during the Civil War, Union forces occupied Huntsville to secure the railroad. They used the depot as a prison for Confederate soldiers, and graffiti left by those soldiers can still be seen on the depot walls today. The depot saw its last regularly scheduled passenger train, Southern Railway's The Tennessean, on March 30, 1968.

The depot served as part of the Early Works Museum for a period of time. In October 2024, the property was returned to the control of the City of Huntsville as the city considers options for the building. A 0-4-0 Porter steam locomotive, built in Pittsburgh in 1904, resides outside the museum area.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons