1861 – 1903
War, Railroad, and a Name That Moved
The hotel burns. The railroad arrives. Every institution migrates from the Springs to the Station, and a mineral spring loses its gravitational pull.
“Chick Springs yields to Taylors. The name had moved.”
Alfred Taylor’s Diary: Freeing Slaves, “Great Changing and Shifting”
“Great changing and shifting.”
— Alfred Taylor’s diary, July 1865
Taylor’s diary from April through July 1865 records “watching for Yanks” and hiding things. In June, he went to Thomas Taylor’s house, freed his slaves, and made contracts. By July: “great changing and shifting of Negroes.” By 1867–68, he noted “great excitement about the Union Leagues and Democrats.” The world that had produced the resort was ending.
The Railroad Arrives—the Center of Gravity Shifts
On April 26, 1873, the first excursion train from Charlotte reached Greenville—the Greenville Enterprise reported 1,500 people met the train. Four years later, Taylor’s Turnout was established as a station on the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Railway. Alfred Taylor got the contract to clear the right-of-way. The shift from Springs to Station had begun—and Taylor himself was the agent of the change.
Every Institution Migrates from Springs to Station
Taylor won a petition battle to reroute the road (1878). The schoolhouse was physically cut into sections, loaded onto wagons, and moved to the Station (1880). The church voted to relocate—57 males, 58 females (1884)—and was renamed Taylors Baptist Church (1887). The post office followed in 1904. A mineral spring that had organized a community for half a century yielded to the railroad stop that bore Alfred Taylor’s family name.