Martinsville depot

[NW Mailing List]

I apologize for not responding sooner about the subject question, but a problem accessing Sanborn insurance maps at the Salem, VA Library turned out to be a problem with the new operating system on my computer blocking the library's scripted window rather than a problem with the Library's Web site as I had expected.

The Sanborn map for Martinsville, May 1927 - Jan. 1949 (Sheet 17) shows the N & W Ry passenger depot to be on Railroad at Broad (Sanborn maps often omitted "Street," "Ave.," etc.), with the freight depot just to the west (compass direction) at Depot and College

Incidentally, the same Sanborn Martinsville map (Sheet 8) shows the Danville & Western Ry. freight depot on Depot between Ford and Franklin, with the D & W passenger depot (shown unused in 1949) just to the north.

Anyone doing historical research involving towns or cities should be cognizant of Sanborn insurance maps, hard copies of which are available in the reference rooms of many libraries for the localities served by those libraries, and electronic versions of which are frequently available online for wider areas.  In this area, the Salem, VA Library has online Sanborn maps for all cities and towns in Virginia.  Access to this resource is free to anyone who has a library card in any of the Roanoke area libraries, and is available to others for a modest fee.  Similar Web sites with Sanborn maps for cities and town in other states are doubtless available.

In addition to such features as depots, the Sanborn maps also show railroad tracks, including spurs to long-vanished business, which are also identified.  Unfortunately, for those of us also interested in traction history, streetcar tracks are not shown, although car barns and power plants are.

Incidentally, the Martinsville Sanborn maps go back to 1886, with the most recent being the one referenced above.

Gordon Hamilton


  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: NWHS 
  Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 1:26 PM
  Subject: Re: Martinsville depot


  Hi Listers,

      Thanks to those who replied to my Martinsville depot question.  I'll have to fudge a bit for a early 80's layout and have the depot.  Anybody recall the street address of the depot?  Looking at the city of Martinsville website the on-line street map it shows a street up on the old Southern line called "Depot St."  I suspect that Southern had a depot in town also??

  Thanks, John Hecker
  nwrlinemp72 at ca.rr.com


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