CSX has agreed to sell the old Paw Paw train depot and its lot for $4,600. A nonprofit wants to buy it, and the Morgan County Commission has given $4,500 toward the work that has to happen first. The money is mostly lined up. Time is shorter. The railroad's due-diligence period ends November 30, which is 18 days after this post goes up.
In the past few years, four other old Paw Paw buildings have been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, and they're close enough together to see in one walk. The depot isn't on the Register yet. Those four buildings needed paperwork. The group trying to save the depot plans to buy it before it pursues a listing, and CSX won't sell until the buyer finishes a property survey the railroad requires.
The price is the small number
The Morgan Messenger reported that Trevor Laber of the Allegany Preservation Society Limited spoke to county commissioners at their October 21 meeting, which the commission held in Paw Paw. He said the group needed more money to complete a survey CSX requires before it will sell. The commissioners approved $4,500 from Hotel/Motel funds for the survey.
Laber told the commission what the group wants to do with the building:
"The end goal is for the depot to be the home base for the Preservation Society, whose focus is on railroading and industrial heritage."
According to the same Messenger story, he also said CSX might demolish the depot if his group doesn't buy it, as the railroad has done with other older stations.
The survey has been the sticking point for a while. In July, American-Rails reported that the remaining costs were surveying, closing and other due-diligence items. It also said the group had struggled to find a local land surveyor who carries the special insurance CSX requires for work on its property.
The society started in 2018, became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2020, and its website has a general donation page. The Messenger describes the group's focus as railroad history in the Western Maryland region. The Town of Paw Paw has backed the effort from early on. Panhandle News Network reported in November 2025 on an October 29, 2025 meeting between town representatives and the society's board, including Laber, treasurer Mike Roche and secretary Titus Swan. At that point the group was asking CSX to donate the property. The plan was a museum, an education center and a community gathering space. A year later, the request to donate has become a $4,600 purchase with a deadline.
What the depot was built to serve
The town and the railroad grew up together. American-Rails says that by 1845 a small depot handling both passengers and freight stood on this site, at a place then often called "Isaac Baker's Depot." The rest of the depot's history shows the railroad moving away from town in stages:
| Year | What changed at Paw Paw |
|---|---|
| By 1845 | An early B&O depot serves the settlement |
| 1882 | The B&O replaces it with the current depot, designed by E. Francis Baldwin |
| 1914 | The Magnolia Cutoff opens on December 6 and moves through traffic onto a straighter route |
| 1930s | Up to six trains a day still stop in town |
| 1961 | The last regular passenger train stops |
| Today | The Capitol Limited runs between Cumberland and Martinsburg with no Paw Paw stop |
The 1914 change is the one that shaped Paw Paw. The original line followed the Paw Paw Bends of the Potomac. The B&O's Magnolia Cutoff, also called the High Line, skipped those curves using four tunnels, named Graham, Stuart, Randolph and Carothers, plus two bridges over the Potomac. Carothers Tunnel is the one nearest Paw Paw. American-Rails reports that the depot kept handling local service on the old line after the main line moved. It also says the B&O pulled the main-line track off the old route through town in 1961, the same year passenger trains stopped.
The passenger trains still go by. Amtrak's current Capitol Limited timetable lists Cumberland, Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry as stops, and Paw Paw isn't one of them. For anyone in town who wants to catch a train, the nearest stations are a drive away in either direction.
American-Rails credits the depot's design to Baldwin, the B&O's main architect from 1872 on, who also designed the stations at Point of Rocks, Rockville and Oakland, Maryland. The same article says the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office has found the depot eligible for the National Register.
Four buildings, one walk
Eligible for the Register isn't the same as listed. The difference shows up a few blocks away. Each of these four Paw Paw buildings got its own state nomination, and the forms are posted by the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture & History:
- Old Mayor's Office and Jail, 93 Lee Street. Built in 1893. Its nomination bases its significance on its long run as the seat of Paw Paw's town government.
- Saint Charles Catholic Mission Church, near Winchester Street. Built in 1876. The nomination describes it as a gathering place for a small Irish Catholic community in a remote area.
- Paw Paw Black School, 149 North Amelia Street. Built in 1928 for Black students. Its nomination records that it served them until segregation ended in 1954, and lists its significance under education, social history and Black ethnic heritage.
- Sen. P. E. Nixon House, Winchester and Lee Streets. A Queen Anne house built in 1909. The nomination connects it to State Senator P. E. Nixon's business and political roles in Paw Paw and across the Eastern Panhandle.
The nomination entries for these buildings are dated between November 2023 and November 2024. That's four in about a year, in a town this size. Much of the credit goes to a resident. The Journal reported that David Abruzzi helped get all four onto the Register, and that the Town of Paw Paw nominated him for a History Hero award for that work.
Lee and Winchester Streets cross at the Nixon House, and the old mayor's office is on Lee. That puts three of the four within a short walk of each other, with the school a few blocks farther up North Amelia. American-Rails notes that the depot sits near these recently listed buildings and that the old track bed around it can still be seen.
Why the depot is the hard one
Each of those four buildings is tied to one part of local life: town government, a church congregation, a school, a family business. The depot connected all of it to everywhere else. A Register nomination records why a building matters. It doesn't buy the building, and the depot has belonged to the railroad for its whole life. American-Rails reports that after passenger service ended, the depot spent decades boarded up and was used now and then for storage, still owned by CSX.
CSX requires the survey before it will sell. Once the society owns the depot, it plans to restore the building, seek a place for it on the National Register, and open it to the public. For Abruzzi's four buildings, the work was a nomination. For the depot, the plan starts with a sale.
As of the Messenger's October 27 report, the county money was approved, the CSX price was set, and November 30 was the date to beat.
At Kesecker Realty, Inc., we keep track of the buildings that make Paw Paw what it is, and that includes the ones that never come up for sale. If you own an older home near Lee, Winchester or North Amelia Street and want to understand its history, contact a local agent today.
