Depot to be used as railroad museum

Trains brought business, tourism and a Marine Corps air station to Havelock. Harold Rawls thinks it’s time this former railroad town pays homage.

“Your younger generations go to a movie and see an old western with trains they stoked with wood,” said Rawls, chairman of the Havelock Historical Preservation Society. “They say, ‘Goodness, did they ever have trains like that?’”

Rawls wants to teach youngsters about the trains they see in the movies and showcase Havelock’s history with a railroad museum planned for the renovated Havelock train depot on Miller Boulevard.

The historical society’s board of directors approved the museum concept last week and decided to use the adjacent historic building, Hugh Trader’s Store, as a companion gift shop.

Dubbed the Havelock Atlantic and East Carolina Railroad Museum, the attraction would feature displays and artifacts from the 95-mile railroad that ran from Goldsboro to Beaufort.

Completed in 1858, the Atlantic and North Carolina Railroad linked Havelock to other cities in the region and introduced commerce and tourism to the town.

“The focus will be on Havelock history, but it is Havelock history as it relates to the railroad,” said Eddie Ellis, a historical society board member and Havelock’s city historian. “Before the base came, that was everything. These are the trains that hauled the stuff to build the base.”

The railroad museum could include a full-size locomotive and caboose outside the building in addition to artifacts, maps, photographs, model railroad displays and a children’s train area.

A meeting room, administrative office for the Havelock Historical Preservation Society and storage space would complete the train depot, which is roughly 5,800 square feet.

Trader’s Store would serve as the main entrance to the museum site, according to a 21-page plan for the new museum.

“What we’re doing is trying to bring people out any way we can,” Rawls said. “We’ve got so many new people here who have no idea about life before the base got here.”

Historical society members are planning a trip to the railroad museum in Wilmington to glean ideas on train museum exhibits, setup and logistics.

Havelock’s own monument to locomotive history could be complete in as soon as two years, but much depends on the train depot restoration project.

Contractors placed a new metal roof on the depot and restored the building’s exterior with nearly $200,000 in grant money from the N.C. Department of Transportation. Inside the 1940s-era train station, only the wooden skeletons of walls stand ready.

“The inside is in shambles right now,” Rawls said. “We’re going to have to go in there and think about what we want to do first.”

The historical society credits Diane Miller, Havelock’s city grant manager, with securing supplemental DOT funding to finish the exterior work. Rawls said the group will work closely with Miller to find and apply for more grants as a new museum in Havelock begins to take shape.

Rawls said the historical society is trying to recruit members and volunteers to raise money and help out with the interior renovations. He said builders, plumbers and electricians could support the project with in-kind donations of free or reduced-cost labor.

“We’ve got big ideas, but we don’t have a big pocketbook,” he said. “We need volunteers, we need money and we need members.”