Salisbury Station celebrates its 100th birthday Saturday

Salisbury Station — the city's historic railroad passenger depot — will celebrate its 100th birthday with a party from 1-4 p.m. Saturday.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served, and the station will be open for tours. Pictures of the past and present station also will be featured.

Historic Salisbury Foundation is sponsoring the event in conjunction with OctoberTour.

Salisbury's Southern Railway passenger station was designed by Franklin Pierce Milburn, a Washington, D.C., architect, and constructed in 1907-1908 by Central Carolina Construction Co. of Greensboro.

Milburn was a noted architect in the South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Kentucky, he studied and worked in several Southern cities before moving to Washington in 1902 to become an architect for Southern Railway.

Milburn designed 19 railroad stations and many other public buildings across the South, including five college buildings for the University of North Carolina.

Called by the Charlotte Daily Observer "the handsomest main line structure between Washington and Atlanta," the Salisbury station combines Italianate and Spanish Mission styles and was officially opened to the public Sept. 1, 1908.

According to architectural historian Davyd Foard Hood, it is "one of the few remaining examples of Milburn's many public buildings in North Carolina and one of the most ambitious railroad depots surviving in the state."

Restored by Historic Salisbury Foundation at a cost of more than $4 million, the original construction price tag was a little over $80,000.

Today, Salisbury Station still serves as the Amtrak passenger station. Historic Salisbury Foundation rents the grand waiting room for events and receptions.

For more information, call Historic Salisbury Foundation at 704-636-0103.