Staley, NC
Randolph County · Altitude 741 ft.
History
The Town of Staley, founded in 1889, was named for Col. John Staley, a Confederate officer in the Civil War. The town is located in Randolph County 20 miles northeast of Asheboro and nearly nine miles northeast of Ramseur. On the A&Y, Staley is 4½ miles south (railroad east) of Liberty on the CF mainline. The town is at an altitude of 741 feet above sea level.
The 1916 ICC valuation recorded Staley’s depot as a standard Type 3 combination station, its freight room set two feet above the passenger end in the same split-level fashion used at Rural Hall up the line. The passenger end was ceiled and “hard-oiled,” a finish the surveyors noted at few other stations, and its platform was laid in chert a full foot thick. Staley also gives a small window on how worn the line’s section housing already was in 1916: one of its two dwellings was “not now occupied,” and neither had ever been painted inside or out. In a survey that measured nearly every building against the type station at Dalton, Staley’s first dwelling is a quiet exception — recorded instead as identical to the dwelling at Julian, a rare second reference point in the railroad’s catalog of standard plans.
The ICC valuation records provided this photograph of the Staley depot (circa 1918).
A real photo postcard of the Staley depot found on eBay, circa 1974.
Track Diagram
An image from the ICC valuation maps gives a fair idea of how the track and depot were laid out.
On an A&Y timetable in 1934 Staley was listed as a stop with capacity for 21 cars.
Industries
A Southern Railway Shippers Guide from 1916 listed four industries in Staley 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). The ICC valuation records for Staley show only a house track, not a dedicated industrial spur. I will add other industries as I receive information about them.
| Industry | Goods Shipped/Rec’d | Company Name |
|---|---|---|
| cotton gin | cotton | J. P. Fox |
| cotton gin | cotton | J. A. Langley |
| sawmill | rough and dressed lumber | C. P. Fox |
| sawmill | rough lumber | J. A. Langley |
Odds and Ends
Here I will include any information that is non-railroad in nature that helps provide a hint as to the character of the people and industries who lived and worked in Staley. I welcome any and all information about this former A&Y community!
This photo depicts a Staley Southern Aggregates plant circa 1950. I’m not 100% certain that “Staley” in the name refers to the town in NC or whether it is just a corporate name, so I placed it here in the odds and ends.
A 1926 calendar for the J. T. Warren store in Staley, NC.