Cope Depot
National Register Listing
Street Address:
Cope Road, Cope, SC (Orangeburg County)
Alternate Name:
Manchester and Augusta Railroad Station in Cope
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817738035
Description and Narrative:
The Cope Depot has been the literal and figurative center of the town of Cope since 1894. Built in 1893 as a station on the Manchester and Augusta Railroad, the depot is significant as the building around which the town developed in the late nineteenth century, and as an excellent example of the typical frame construction of combined passenger and freight depots of its day. The town and the depot were founded on land purchased from Orangeburg County farmer Jacob Martin Cope. Within a few years of the building of the depot, the town boasted residences, two churches, several mercantile stores, a drugstore, a grist mill, a cotton gin and a planing mill which points to how essential the railroad was to growth in this part of the state. The depot was the center of communication in the town’s early history as a center for mail service, telegraph service and telephone service. The depot is a one-story, gable-end, linear frame building set on a 6’x6’ concrete piling foundation and clad in vertical board and batten planks. The metal clad roof shelters the building in a typical fashion with wide overhanging eaves supported by knee braces on the principal gable end and elongated curved wooden brackets along both side elevations. The depot ceased operation by the mid-1960s, but is still considered the focal point of Cope. Listed in the National Register March 29, 2001.
Period of Significance:
1893 – 1950
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Transportation;Community Planning and Development
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
March 29 2001
