After the end of the Civil War, the Louisville & Nashville Railroad offered to operate the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad, which was unable to repair the road.
Standing on 10th Street in downtown Clarksville, it’s hard to imagine that this was once a bustling transportation hub around the turn of the 20th century. Passenger trains no longer pass through the city and freights trains are seldom seen. But, the tracks are there and they are still in use. The old depot, known by locals as the L&N Station, still stands, but it no longer serves weary travelers stepping off a train from Louisville, or passenger ready to being a trip.
The Tennessee Central Railway connected Nashville, Tenn., and Hopkinsville, Ky. The railroad operated until it went bankrupt in 1968. It was taken over by the Illinois Central Gulf, which operated trains through Clarksville until the early 1980s.
Today, it’s not much more than a bookmark in history. But, for about 20 years, the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad operated an 82-mile stretch of track between Paris, Tenn., and Guthrie, Ky.
At about 8 p.m. on Sept. 29, 1906, a northbound Louisville & Nashville Railroad passenger train — No. 102 — steamed towards a swing bridge crossing the Cumberland River. Near the overpass, a glowing red light broke the night’s darkness, signaling for an approaching train to stop.
Todd DeFeo, publisher of The Cross-Tie, presents a lecture — Railroads in Clarksville: The Present and the Future — to a journalism class at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tenn.