Dalton, NC

History

Dalton may not have been a community, but it was a listed station on the Atlantic & Yadkin and had a depot at least in 1934. In 1916, the Southern Shippers’ Guide listed three industries, although two of them had owners that lived in nearby towns. There was a water tank and section house located at Dalton according to the ICC valuation map. By 1943, Dalton was no longer listed on the employee time table.

Dalton’s buildings mattered out of proportion to the size of the place. When the ICC valuation surveyors worked the northern end of the line in the fall of 1916, they reached Dalton first, on October 23, and made it their reference point. Up and down the north end — at Ararat, Pilot Mountain, Pinnacle, Germanton, and beyond — each depot, section dwelling, and tool house was simply recorded as “identical with” the corresponding building at Dalton, with only the exceptions noted. The depot itself was a Type 3 combination station, the standard Southern Railway plan that put a passenger waiting room, agent’s office, and freight room under one roof. It had board-and-batten walls and a shingle roof on tight sheathing. The passenger end was finished in tongue-and-groove under an 11-foot-3-inch ceiling; the freight room was boarded up four and a half feet high over a two-inch plank floor. A sliding ticket window, two standard concrete stove bases, and a chert passenger platform of roughly 433 square yards completed the stop. The section layout added two standard dwellings, a tool house, a barn, a pig pen, and a well dug 41 feet deep — the small domestic world of the crew who kept this stretch of track.

Track Diagram

Note in the map that several stores and warehouses were located near the station and tracks.

Industries

A Southern Railway Shippers Guide from 1916 indicates the following industries were located in Dalton and using the A&Y for delivering and receiving products by rail (although some may have used the station or team track rather than having a dedicated siding). I will add other industries as I receive information about them:

Odds and Ends

If you have any information regarding the history of Dalton, NC, please contact me.