Featuring photos from the collection of Jim P. Bryan
Hotel Gildare on Main Street was the center of town. This photo is found on a postcard dated 1906. If the camera could pan to the right you would see the train station and then the track. Note the absence of motor cars in this image.
The Citizens Bank Building in Fairfax at the main intersection. Today this building is on the left as you enter Fairfax on the Allendale Fairfax Highway coming from Allendale. If the camera were to pan to the left you would see the train station.
The Fairfax Furniture Company. This photo is a closer view of the photo above. You can see a piece of furniture being loaded into a truck.
Another view of Hotel Gildare in its heyday. Sitting on the corner of Main and Railroad, it was a stone's throw from the train station. The train station was the geometric center of the town. In fact, the town of Allendale was moved from its previous location a few miles away in 1873 and formed in a circular shape with a 3/4 mile radius -- the station at its center.
The passenger station and freight depot in Fairfax. Photo was taken by the Ess and Ess Company from New York around 1910. The wood frame station was later replaced by a brick station building, which stands today at the intersection of two railroad lines. Today the lines are used by the CSX company. At the time of this photo the east-west route was the Charleston and Western Carolina Railroad, and the north-south route was the Seaboard Air Lines. One source puts the population of Fairfax in 1910 at 725.
Post Office Block in Fairfax. Across the street from the Citizens Bank and Fairfax Furniture Company. Establishments shown here from left to right: Southern Express Company, Owens Drug Company, Lunch Room, Post Office (on corner).
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