What a perfect day to set off exploring!

A and I haven’t had a lot of free time to get together lately. It’s mostly my fault… I’ve been traveling A LOT! As you know I went to PA the other week for a wedding, and then I went to SC for a bachelorette weekend for one of my best friends! Unfortunately for you A didn’t travel either place with me.

Finally able to get together we decided to head out to Hancock Co, more precisely Sparta, GA. We have traveled to a few places in Sparta before but we decided to use this trip to find new places. The day did not disappoint! The first stop of the day was an old train depot (why isn’t it depo like you say it)? To be fair A had already been here with her roommate (M). Since I couldn’t go with them that day (and M kept sending me amazing pictures) I was determined to visit. The day that A and M went they asked everyone they could find for directions to the depot and NO ONE knew what they were talking about. Luckily they were able to find it, and A knew how to get us there.

This place was amazing! Since it is spring time the grass/weeds around it were a little overgrown but it wasn’t awful. In fact someone had recently cut the grass in front of it and A said that it looked like someone had cleaned the inside up a little since the last time she was there. I’m not sure what that means. Maybe someone is going to start paying a little attention to it or maybe its just so beautiful that the community or someone tries to somewhat keep it up.

The roof is somewhat falling in and the floor boards are sketchy in places, but for the most part the building is relatively safe to enter. “Positively no smoking” is painted on most of the walls, and the massive sliding doors are falling in. The beauty of this place in the eye of the beholder and thankfully A and I have the same eye for this kind of thing. We find a strange kind of beauty in decaying structures that others may look past and only see a building that is no longer useful and falling in.  Exploring places like this makes me happy. I can’t help but think of all the history that goes with it. If only the walls could talk!

A found out the depot was built in 1881 as part of the Georgia railroad. I briefly tried to find out more history about it but wasn’t able to find much. I will probably do some more research later on and see if I can find when it was last used or anything else about it. I did find an old youtube video from the 70’s. I’ll try to post it at the bottom.

We spent about 1/3 of our time here walking around the outside of the building and the rest of the time inside. I think we had everyone wondering what on earth we were doing because every car that went by slowed way down and looked at us like we were crazy. We went on exploring, making sure not to mess anything up while we were there. We want any one else that might visit this amazing place to experience what we did.

We could have stayed here forever, but we had other places to see. A and I loaded back up in the jeep and started back out. Sparta is a small town with a lot of beautiful places to visit, so next week we will post the second part of this trip! But first, we just want to say thank you for all the love and support we have gotten so far! It means the world to us!

~B

Youtube Video The Sparta depot is seen around 7:50 in the video!