POWERGRAMS

33 Southern Railroad depot, where red caboose X658 is parked on the last section of track left after the railway ended service to Fayette in the 1990s. An old electric warning system next to Temple Avenue no longer cautions drivers. The town's only remaining parking meters stand expired at the depot entrance. Unlike most small town railroad depots, Fayette's was built with red and black brick, marble window frame supports, intricate tile flooring and massive decorative wood beams supporting a slate roof. City fathers demanded it after the fire of 1911, as they forbade all wood structures downtown. The huge sliding doors were saved three decades ago during the restoration that installed modern glass and aluminum frame entrance doors. The museum includes fire-singed cups that are among the few items salvaged from the inferno 108 years ago. Just inside the former public ticket purchasing area are a wide wooden desk and tall hutch, which are among many pieces of furniture sold when the depot closed, but donated back by townspeople for the museum that opened in 2002. On one hutch shelf is an autographed photo of U.S. Rep. William Bankhead. A hand-cranked New Century phonograph has 30 steel disks that play tunes such as "Home on the Range." Through another doorway, past the original steel wall-safe, is a large collection of Daisy air pistols and rifles. There are military mementos from war survivors, as well as from families of Fayette County soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country: 67 died in World War II, 23 in WWI, nine in Korea and six in Vietnam. "Everything in here was donated from people all over the city and the county," Campbell says. There is a complete whiskey still seized by the sheriff three decades ago. Three stone jugs that once held T.G. Johnson Fine Whiskies are in a display case nearby. Only 10 such decanters are known to exist from the pre- Prohibition Johnson distillery that was inside a saloon in downtown Fayette. Old railroad carts, hand trucks, signal lights and lanterns line the wall where passengers boarded trains until the 1950s. Outmoded medical equipment is displayed from the estate of Dr. Benjamin McNeese, who started the town's first hospital in 1926. In the center of the depot stands a 10-foot-wide by 16-foot- tall model of 1950s Fayette, built five years ago by Campbell and museum co-curator Bart Robertson. Circling the town is a miniature railroad train that runs when schoolchildren visit. The "masterpiece" of the model is the courthouse built by artist Peco Foresman, which took more than 500 hours and cost $8,000. "He spent three days here studying the courthouse, then delivered the model in three months," Campbell says. "He said it would be exact, and it is, right down to the copper flashings on the roof gutter valleys. Within a week of the museum receiving it, eight people stepped forward to pay for it." WATERPARK From Memorial Day to Labor Day, every day is a water fun day in Fayette, where about 25,000 people each year enjoy the Aquatic Center sitting inside the landlocked city since 2012. Easily the town's most popular tourist attraction, it draws visitors at $10 a head from across west Alabama and east Mississippi. Situated in 100-acre Guthrie Smith Park alongside baseball fields, a 10-acre lake, picnic pavilions and a playground, the waterpark attracts about 300 people on normal summer days and up to 900 on hot holiday Saturdays and Sundays. Starting with a simple splashpad in 2007, the park has grown to include the Nancy Rutland Swimming Pool, slide tubes winding from a 35-foot-tall steel platform tower and, most recently, a 350-foot-long, 3-foot-deep "lazy river" with five Museum items donated from people across Fayette County. Southern Railroad donated depot, caboose when local rail service ended. Model of 1950s Fayette includes detailed courthouse, cost $8,000.

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