Anniston

Anniston is a town of 22,000 people (2018) on the slope of the Blue Mountain in Alabama. It has several historic sites from the civil rights campaign of the 1960s.

Get in

By train

The 1 Amtrak Station at 126 West 4th Street is served by the Crescent service.

By bus

Greyhound buses no longer use the historic bus station that is now a national monument. They stop at the train station instead.

By bicycle

• 2 Chief Ladiga Trail. Bike path that goes from the Georgia state line and terminates in Anniston. At the state line, this trail connects to the Silver Comet Trail. (updated Dec 2020)

See

Anniston has architecturally significant churches and Victorian houses.

Civil Rights Era

The Anniston Civil Rights Trail includes ten historic sites from the Civil Rights Movement in Anniston.

The former Greyhound bus station, preserved as part of Freedom Riders National Monument

• Freedom Riders National Monument. Two historic sites preserved to honor the Freedom Riders, civil rights activists who nonviolently protested racial discrimination and were attacked by mobs in 1961. The monument consists of two sites in different parts of Anniston. (updated Apr 2020)
  • 1 Historic Greyhound Bus Station, 1031 Gurnee Avenue. Where a mob of segregationists and Klansmen attacked Freedom Riders on Sunday, May 14, 1961. The station is not open to the public, but next to it is a mural and information about the event. 
  • 2 Bus Burning Site, Old Birmingham Highway/State Route 202. Six miles away from the Greyhound station, the bus carrying the riders out of town broke down due to the damage done by the mob. Meanwhile the segregationists had been chasing the bus, and they set fire to it and attacked the escaping passengers. The field where the bus was burned is now marked with a sign. 
• Anniston Memorial Hospital, 400 East 10th St. The injured Freedom Riders made their way to this hospital, where most of them were refused treatment and the mob attacked them again, until they were rescued by deacons who drove them back to Birmingham. 
• Historic Trailways Bus Station, 1018 Noble St. Where another group of Freedom Riders stopped and were beaten by a group of segregationists who forced them to sit separately. The historic station now has a mural and information panels. 

Museums

• 3 Anniston Museum of Natural History, 800 Museum Dr, ☏ +1 256-237-6766. (updated Oct 2020)

Other sights

• 4 World's Largest Office Chair. (updated Oct 2020)

Do

• 1 Mountain Longleaf National Wildlife Refuge, 407 Baby Bains Gap Rd, ☏ +1 256-848-6833, mountainlongleaf@fws.gov. (updated Oct 2020)

Stay safe

Anniston has a high crime rate.

Go next

• Birmingham