Foley Depot Museum

The museum's building is bound up with Foley's founding. Chicago businessman John B. Foley heard about southern Baldwin County from a railroad agent while traveling to President William McKinley's funeral in 1901, came to see the area the next year, and bought between 40,000 and 50,000 acres through what became the Magnolia Springs Land Company. To move settlers and goods into his new town, Foley spent his own money laying rails from Bay Minette, and the town's first railroad station went up in 1905. Fire destroyed that station in 1908; the depot built to replace it a year later is the building that now houses the city's museum. The earliest train to serve the town was a wood burner nicknamed the "Pine Knot Special," which headed out of Foley in the morning and came back in the afternoon, with settlers leaving pine lighter knots in a wood box for the engineer's use. Today the restored depot holds the City of Foley Museum & Archives and Model Train Exhibit, preserving the city's records alongside railroad memorabilia.