page_title: Cookeville Railroad Depot
section_title: Construction of the Tennessee Central
hierarchical_section_title: Cookeville Railroad Depot / Construction of the Tennessee Central
caption_attribution_description: English: Cupola-style caboose at the Cookeville Depot Museum in Cookeville, Tennessee, USA. The museum, housed in Cookeville's Tennessee Central Depot, acquired and restored this caboose in 2005.
context_page_description: The Cookeville Railroad Depot is a railroad depot in Cookeville, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Built by the Tennessee Central Railway in 1909, the depot served Cookeville until the 1950s when passenger train service to the city was phased out. The depot was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and is currently home to the Cookeville Depot Museum.
  Although it was often wrought with financial difficulties and struggled in the face of competition from the larger L&N and Southern railroads, the construction of the Tennessee Central line was an important political and economic milestone for late-19th century Middle Tennessee. The railroad connected the residents of the Upper Cumberland region to the outside world, and gave the region's farmers access to major markets in Nashville and Knoxville. The railroad also brought urbanization and modern development to Cookeville and other cities in the Upper Cumberland and Cumberland Plateau regions.
context_section_description: After the Civil War, large-scale railroad construction occurred in East Tennessee and the Nashville and Memphis areas, but the difficult terrain of the Highland Rim and the Cumberland Plateau stalled the railroad's advance into the Upper Cumberland region.  In the 1870s, the Tennessee and Pacific Railroad built a line connecting Nashville and Lebanon (this line was purchased by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway in 1877).  Politicians and newspaper reporters across the Upper Cumberland region initiated a massive publicity campaign in the early 1880s calling for the railroad to be extended across Middle Tennessee.
  In 1884, mining entrepreneur Alexander Crawford, believing the Upper Cumberland region to be endowed with vast deposits of high-quality coal, chartered the Nashville & Knoxville Railroad with plans to extend the railroad across the Cumberland Plateau and allow shipment of coal to markets in Nashville and Knoxville.  Although a particularly difficult stretch between Watertown and Silver Point— requiring the building of several trestles across the Caney Fork— slowed the railroad's construction, the Nashville & Knoxville's tracks nevertheless reached Cookeville in July 1890.  Although Crawford died shortly thereafter, his sons continued his work, and managed to extend the tracks to Monterey, at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau.
  In 1893, Middle Tennessee businessman Jere Baxter (1852–1904) chartered the Tennessee Central Railroad with plans to continue what Crawford had started.  Like Crawford, Baxter faced major economic obstacles.  He raised funds by selling bonds to Cumberland and Roane counties, and saved money by using convict labor.  He also had to overcome legal maneuvering by the L&N and Southern railroads, who feared the Tennessee Central's competition.  In 1898, the Tennessee Central completed its eastern section, connecting Monterey with the Southern tracks at Harriman.  Baxter purchased the Nashville & Knoxville Railroad in 1902, and two years later the Tennessee Central completed a line from Nashville to the Illinois Central tracks at Hopkinsville, Kentucky, thus connecting Middle Tennessee to the rest of the country.  Cookeville residents could now travel all the way to Minnesota via 10-hour train ride.
  After Baxter's death in 1904, the Tennessee Central continued to struggle with financing.  It attempted lease arrangements with both the Illinois Central and Southern Railroad, but by 1908 these arrangements had been abandoned.  In 1912, the Tennessee Central was placed in receivership, and in subsequent years was reorganized with more of a focus on freight traffic.  By the mid-20th century, the rise of automobile and bus travel brought about the decline of passenger trains.  The last passenger train left Cookeville on July 31, 1955.
caption: Cupola-style caboose at the Cookeville Depot Museum
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