
Stonefort Depot Museums - Stonefort, IL
Posted by:
paulspaper
N 37° 36.885 W 088° 42.466
16S E 349276 N 4164443
Nice museum located in a retired railroad depot in Stonefort, Illinois.
Waymark Code: WM15Q2E
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 02/07/2022
Views: 0
The museum was closed when I discovered it. It is located on the Tunnel Hill State Trail, a rail-to-trail in Southern, Illinois.
This is the Big 4 depot at Stonefort, Illinois on the Cairo Line. It was located at milepost 203.9 (from Danville), about 14 miles south of Harrisburg. It was the last "open station" between Harrisburg and Cairo, and was closed in 1964.
From the Harrisburg Register: (
visit link)
"A vistor to Stonefort's Railroad Depot Museum could be forgiven for thinking he or she had stepped out of a time machine into the village's railway heyday.
Old signs from railroad companies and businesses long gone adorn the walls, and various tools and machines hearken back to a simpler time when the railways and telegraphs connected the country.
For museum owner and curator Linda Blackman, it's a testament to preserving the history of her hometown.
Blackman, a retired Regional Office of Education superintendent, inherited the building after the passing of her parents, Virgil and Amy (Lewis) Blackman.
"My father acquired the building from the New York Central Railroad Co. in 1965," she said.
He intended to move his hardware store into the building, and added a pole structure to the building to contain his inventory and shop."