05/29/2026
2️⃣5️⃣0️⃣ 🇺🇸 1️⃣7️⃣2️⃣🎉
250 Years of America. 172 Years of Opelika. 🚂🇺🇸
The Railroad Avenue District has historically been the city's business center, an area equally distant from all city boundaries. It was established as the heart of the City in the 1850s around the Montgomery and West Point Railway Station. In 1864, another railroad was built from Opelika to Columbus, making the city a transportation center. During 1864 and 1865, Opelika's government supply warehouses, its depot, rolling stock, and railroad were a target of Federal raiders Rousseau and Wilson. Train service from Atlanta to Montgomery was re-established in 1865.
Descriptions of the original appearance of the district indicate that it was a collection of small wooden buildings, with warehouses concentrated on both sides of the railroad and commercial buildings reaching up the hillsides. After the Great Fire of 1868, one and two-story brick buildings, usually massed in solid blocks, replaced the earlier structures.
The district's major building phase occurred from the 1880s to the 1920s; the architectural character of the buildings is representative of the plain style of that period.
The District was accepted for placement on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
Follow along each week as we share more places in Opelika that help shape our town’s story.
