National Register of Historic Places

Union Station

Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina
Listed
December 24, 1998
Type
Building
Period
Civil War
Ref No.
98001547

About this property

Union Station is a historic train station, currently serving as a bus station, located in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina. The station was built to service the Southern, Norfolk and Western and Winston-Salem Southbound Railways. It was designed by Fellhimer & Wagner and built between 1924 and 1926. It is a one to three story, banked Beaux-Arts style steel frame building faced with brick and limestone. It consists of a rectangular main body, five bays wide and eight bays deep, with a large square east wing. The front facade features a limestone portico supported by paired heroic columns with stylized Corinthian order capitals. Brickwork on the main level is laid in Flemish bond. Surrounding the building are some surviving original landscape features. The station served as the city's sole passenger train station between 1926 and 1970. The station was sold to Harvey Davis in 1975, and he converted the building into an automobile repair business called Davis Garage. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Winston-Salem acquired the building in 2012 through eminent-domain, with a long term goal of reestablishing passenger train service to the city. In 2018 the city hired Walter Robbs Callahan & Pierce Architects and New Atlantic Contracting to restore the station, and it had a grand reopening on September 7, 2019. Union Station currently serves as a secondary bus hub for the Winston-Salem Transit Authority, after the Clark Campbell Transportation Center. PART's Route 1 stops at the station, and in conjunction with PART's Route 3, serves as an Amtrak Thruway connector to High Point station. On December 8, 2023, the Federal Railroad Administration included an Amtrak route connecting Winston-Salem to Raleigh into the Corridor Identification and Development Program. The proposed route would include intermediate stops at Greensboro, Burlington, Durham, and Cary, complementing the existing state-supported Piedmont and Carolinian services. The North Carolina Department of Transportation was granted $500,000 toward engineering and feasibility studies for the route. The station has three levels, with the highest level at-grade with Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive and the lowest level along Norfolk Southern Railway's K-Line. The street level, historically known as the concourse level, has the station's waiting room. The middle level is unoccupied, and the city intends on leasing out the space. The City of Winston-Salem Department of Transportation offices and Traffic Management Center occupies the station's lowest floor. Union – Station history at Great American Stations (Amtrak)

Location

300 Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr.
Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, North Carolina
36.09333, -80.22820

Categories

ARCHITECTURETRANSPORTATION
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Overview
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The Land
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Geology
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LiDAR Terrain
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Conflict & War
The battles, raids and skirmishes fought near here, across every era of American conflict.
The Civil War
The Civil War on this ground, 1861 to 1865: who held it, and the battles, camps and regiments nearby.
The Soldiers
The men who marched from here in the Civil War, named and traced where the record allows.
Native Heritage
The Native nations who held this land, mapped across time from before European contact to today.
Settlement
Who claimed and held this ground, from Indigenous homelands through the colonial powers to the United States.
The Community
How the town grew, who came, and what kind of place it became, traced through the census record.
Rivers & Rail
The rivers, canals and railroads that connected this place between 1830 and 1911.
Notable People
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Literature
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Nearby Historic Sites

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Mars Hill Baptist Church
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Nearby Battles

Stoneman's Raid — Germantown (Midway) NC
1865Civil War
3.7 mi
Battle of Shallow Ford (NC Yadkin, 1781)
1781Revolutionary War
11.5 mi
Battle of Shallow Ford
1781Revolutionary War
12 mi

Questions about this property

When was Union Station listed on the National Register?

Union Station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 24, 1998.

What type of historic resource is Union Station?

Union Station is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Union Station?

The period of significance for Union Station is recorded as the civil_war era.

Can I research the history near Union Station?

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