One of Virginia’s earliest surviving railroad stations, the Beaverdam Depot in Hanover County was built in 1866 to replace a makeshift depot destroyed by Union forces on May 9, 1864. This makeshift depot replaced an 1862 depot destroyed in a Union raid of February 1864. The original ca. 1840 depot was likewise destroyed in a Union raid on Beaverdam on July 20, 1862. The present depot was one of several rebuilt by the Virginia Central Railroad on the sites of depots lost to war. Not long after completion of this brick facility, the Virginia Central Railroad Co. was purchased by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which emerged in the 1880s as one of the state’s dominant lines. Although no longer in use, Beaverdam’s depot is remarkably well preserved. Both of its waiting rooms have beaded-board walls and ceilings. The office retains shelving and switching mechanisms. The long, low Beaverdam Depot structure also has baggage and freight rooms.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia