SOPCHOPY’S DEPOT TO BE CELEBRATED WITH ‘DEPOT DAY’

Will be held this Saturday with lots of train-focused exhibits

The historic depot in Sopchoppy.


Depot Caretaker Nelson Martin

By WILLIAM SNOWDEN Editor

The First Annual Depot Day celebration will be held on Saturday, Sept. 9th in Sopchoppy, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. with lots of train-focused exhibits – including groups such as the Big Bend Model Railroad Club, who will be setting up in the Towles House full of train layouts for viewers to come see, and the National Railway Historical Society out of Tallahassee.
Last year’s event was canceled due to inclement weather, but this year event organizers have planned many attractions and activities to bring people in. (The Sopchoppy Community Market will also be set up with vendors in Depot Park.)
“There’s a lot to interest everybody, I think, here,” says Nelson Martin, the current caretaker of the Sopchoppy Museum.
Martom moved to Sopchoppy from Baltimore, Maryland in 1972.
“There were all these old-timers on the loafer’s bench in Sopchoppy talking about the railroad days and the 1920s,” he recalls. “They were just so full of interesting stories.”
Those stories about how Sopchoppy used to be sparked an interest in the history of the town and its depot, but before 1993 he had no opportunity to take action to preserve the depot or the history.
In ’93, the man who owned the depot went bankrupt and was going to sell the property off to the bank, who would bulldoze the depot and replace it with something else.
“I put together a group and started the Gopher, Frog, and Alligator (a local nickname for the Georgia, Florida, and Alabama Railroad that ran through Sopchoppy) corporation and sold enough shares of stock that we were able to purchase the property for $35,000,” says Martin.
From there, Martin and the group he put together started to clean and fix the depot, but they unfortunately ran out of money before they could finish.
Eventually, the depot was fully restored through a federal grant that dealt with historical transportation buildings, and was turned into a public museum that opened in 2010.
Martin has kept continuously updating and adding exhibits and displays, focusing on the ways that the railroad affected Sopchoppy, and the ways that the residents of the time made their living. They have extensive displays on things such as the logging industry, which was the main reason the railroad extended through Wakulla county, and they even have the original typewriter and telegraph used in the depot a century ago.
Even though the museum is already packed full of the history of Sopchoppy’s railroad days, Martin wants to continue to add more exhibits.
Currently, he is working on putting up one display about the Apalachee who lived here before European arrival, as well as a diorama that will show a detailed layout of the town when the railroad was thriving, right down to the pigs that were always heard under the depot.
“This diorama project will keep us busy for the next few years… that is going to be a continuing focus now,” he says.
Martin also has an idea to make the museum more interactive, by hooking up two separate telegraphs from the railroad era on opposite sides of the depot, and use digital readouts to allow visitors to communicate across them.
The new trail town designation will also bring some changes. “We originally wanted this to be a welcome center, as well as a museum, and it’s perfect for that. People who come to the area for recreation and exploring, we can provide maps and directions and anything they need.” Martin is also confident that the designation will also boost the economy of Sopchoppy, saying, “I just hope this trail town brings us a good restaurant or two, at least.”
Despite all the hard work that Martin and others have put in to making the depot a special place, they still need the help of the community in order to keep it running and continue to update it. They’re always on the lookout for old photographs of the depot, specifically with a train in the station, as those can be used in many exhibits for many years to come.
They would also like to have more volunteers. The depot is typically open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and having volunteers willing to help man the depot would make things much easier, Martin says.