The Train

Train coming into Beaufort for June 8, 1907 grand celebration*
(Second block of Broad St. - Louis James Noe House 1902 - on the right)

Prior to train service Beaufort, visitors who came by train were met at the railroad terminus in Morehead City and brought to town by boat. After the railroad bridge was built across the channel, tracks were laid down the middle of Broad Street - bringing the outside world to Beaufort. For a short period, before the Norfolk & Southern Railway wye** (turnaround) was completed, the first trains had to back into Beaufort.

In those early years, as the train lumbered into town on Broad Street, passengers would have seen sundries shops – like Noe’s, Dave Williams’ Grocery, and Richard Rice’s Fabric Shop - that sold everything from penny candy to 5-cent pickles. Until the 1920s, when the first automobiles came to town, passengers were met at the Beaufort Depot, at Broad and Pollock, and transported by horse-and-buggy to inns or family cottages.

Eighty-six years after the first train backed into town, the train made its last official run to Beaufort in 1992. After that, an engine with one car would often make trips into town, stopping to wait for cars temporarily straddling the track. The removal of the tracks began in the first block of Broad in 1994.

Ginny Welton, longtime resident of Broad Street has written, “it was a sad day when the tracks of the railroad were taken up from Broad Street. How many generations of pennies, nails, and even quarters were flattened as the train rolled over them…as the economy of Beaufort grew? The train had brought to 211 Broad Street some of the outside world…as logs from other countries went past…from the port at Morehead City to the Atlantic Veneer Company on the east end of Beaufort.”

**The new WYE neighborhood embraces the history of Beaufort—from the architecture of the bungalow-style homes, to its namesake—the train junction that was situated on the site in the early 20th century.

*Old black and white photos were scanned from Jack Dudley's book,
Beaufort - An Album of Memories - available at local bookstore including Rocking Chair Books and the BHA Giftshop in Beaufort. If you haven't done so already, be sure to go back to click on images to enlarge.