Guthrie, KY: A Railroad Town

How trains have shaped the history of Guthrie, KY

Freshly painted locomotives in Guthrie, KY

Railroads made Guthrie, Kentucky. Several major rail lines intersected in southern Todd County, on the Kentucky and Tennessee state line, and the city of Guthrie grew around the tracks.

The beginning of the railroad era

The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture gives the following information about railways that ran through Guthrie, even before the Civil War.

Nashville gained rail access to the North through Kentucky. Louisville city subscriptions and Tennessee state aid financed the Louisville and Nashville (L&N), incorporated in Kentucky in 1850... Completed in 1859, it hosted an excursion intended to preserve the Union... The Edgefield and Kentucky (E&K), completed in 1860, ran from the Nashville suburb of Edgefield to Guthrie on the Kentucky boundary.

Memphis also established railroad access to Louisville: the Memphis and Ohio (M&O) ran from Memphis to Paris; the Memphis, Clarksville, and Louisville ran from Paris to Guthrie; and the L&N constructed a branch from Bowling Green to Guthrie."

Quoted from The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture

Shortly after the L&N completed its line to Nashville in 1859, the Civil War disrupted the region. During the war, the Union controlled the area in which the L&N operated, and the railroad made a lot of money transporting U.S. troops and supplies.

Guthrie becomes a railroad boomtown

Opera House, Guthrie KY

When the war ended and reconstruction began, the L&N Railroad had plenty of cash on hand to expand dramatically throughout the South. The surge of investment in infrastructure paid off in an immense increase in traffic on its lines, bringing many trains through Guthrie at all hours of the day and night. Businessmen recognized the opportunity to provide goods and services to travelers and shippers, and Guthrie became a railroad boomtown.

In 1879, the city of Guthrie was chartered. It was named for John James Guthrie, the L&N Railroad President. The railroads prospered for many years, and Guthrie also prospered. Fine homes were built, and the business district was lined with stores, saloons, a hotel, and even an opera house.

Five railroad lines that met in Guthrie were:

- the L&N St. Louis-Evansville-Nashville line
- the L&N Louisville-Memphis line
- the L&N Guthrie-Bowling Green branch
- the Edgefield and Kentucky Railroad
- the Guthrie-Elkton (KY) spur (chartered in 1883)

Hard times for the railroads

Rail travel and shipping declined during the mid-1900s. The rail companies labored under out-of-date FCC regulations, a loss of travel and shipping to the new Interstate highway system, an increase in air travel, and the loss of railway post offices. These problems led to major restructuring and consolidation. Many railroad lines closed in the 1960s. 1970s and 1980s.

Congress could not agree whether to subsidize, nationalize, or deregulate the remaining passenger lines, so nothing was done. Finally, in 1970, Amtrak was formed and most of America's railroads turned their passenger service over to it. In 1980, an important railroad bill, the Staggers Rail Act, was passed, and with deregulation, freight lines were able to operate at a profit again.

R.J. Corman locomotive
in Guthrie KY

The Elkton-Guthrie line closed in 1957. The L&N was merged into the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad in the early 1970s and eliminated its few remaining passenger lines in 1979. After another merger, the CSX railroad company assumed control of the former L&N rail system. The City of Guthrie's website states that the population of Guthrie dropped by 50% in a single year, sometime (no year given) during all this restructuring.

Railroads in Guthrie today

I've become quite curious about Guthrie lately, and this has led to my research of its history. We bought a used car for Keely in Guthrie, so we've made several trips there in the last month. I've had a chance to loiter about the town, admire the old houses and buildings, and note the presence of the train industry to this day.

Front end of an
R.J. Corman locomotive

The R.J. Corman Railroad Company has a shop in Guthrie. They usually have a freshly painted locomotive on the tracks in front of it. R.J. Corman operates a short-line railroad from Bowling Green, KY, to Zinc, TN, that passes through Guthrie.

The CSX Railroad Company, heir to the L&N railroad, has an office and shop in Guthrie also. Trains still rumble through the town regularly.

L&N Caboose in Guthrie, KY

The L&N Railroad's role in Guthrie history is honored in a little downtown park where a cheery red L&N caboose is displayed. The depot was torn down long ago.

I'll write more later about some of the efforts Guthrie is making to revitalize itself after enduring the changes in the railroad industry.

Related:
"Southbound in the Snow" -- train pictures taken near Guthrie
Songs by Mickey Newbury that mention Guthrie
More train pictures from Guthrie
Many L&N Railroad photos

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Wheatberry Bread

All In The Family... Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

Isaac and I went over to "Clarks-vegas" (Clarksville, TN) yesterday afternoon to eat out with Keely and her boyfriend. On the way over, I stopped at the little Amish bulk-food store near Guthrie.

They have the best selection of flours and other grain products that I know of in this area and most of their prices on these products are very reasonable. I bought rye flour, cracked wheat flour, wheatberries, yeast and wheat gluten. (All of these are ingredients for bread baking.)

This afternoon, I looked up a recipe in my Wooden Spoon Bread Book and made a batch of wheatberry bread using various bread ingredients from the Amish store.

A wheatberry, I should explain, is the entire wheat grain minus its hulls. When cooked, they swell up to about the size of a small ladybug and they're chewy. They give the bread dough a really odd texture.

I made a double recipe and baked it as three long loaves on a cookie sheet. Oh it is so good. We ate nearly all of one loaf, hot out of the oven and well-buttered.

Here's the recipe as I adapted it from the Wooden Spoon Bread Book. If you don't have rye flour, just use whole wheat. The rye flour, wheat germ, and gluten were not in the original recipe, anyway.

Cooking the Wheatberries:

Toast 2 cups of wheatberries by stirring them around in a heavy skillet over medium heat. (Careful! They can burn.) Then put them in a saucepan with 6 cups of water and a teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, then simmer over low heat for 1 hour. Drain excess water. This makes about five cups of wheatberries, so freeze the extras to use for another batch of bread. Also, I think they might be good in soup!

Wheatberry Bread

Combine in a large bowl:

4 cups warm water
2 packs (or tablespoons) yeast
2 teaspoons sugar

When yeast becomes active, stir in the following:

2 cups cooked wheatberries (at room temperature)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
1 tablespoon salt
2 eggs (reserve the white of one egg)
1/4 cup wheat gluten
1 cup wheat germ
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups rye flour

Beat well, gradually adding

All purpose flour as needed.

When the dough is stiff enough to handle, turn it out of the bowl and knead well. Collect any stray wheatberries and poke them back into the dough. Grease a bowl and put the bread dough into it. Turn the bread dough over so the greased side is out. Cover the dough and place it in a warm place to rise until doubled, about an hour. Punch the dough down and divide it into three equal parts. Shape each part into a loaf. Place the loaves on a well-greased cookie sheet (or sheets.) Cover the loaves and place them in a warm place to rise until doubled, about 30-45 minutes. Before baking, beat the reserved egg white with

1 teaspoon water

and brush the tops of the loaves with it. Make seven equally spaced slashes across the tops of each loaf. Place in a 375°F oven and bake for about 40 minutes. Cool the loaves on wire racks.


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On February 11 a year ago, I posted about "Bill's House." I'm glad I took that photo because last spring, the house was bulldozed and burned. Now there's no sign it was ever there.

Stagecoach Inn (Gray's Inn) in Guthrie, KY

Life in the Upper South...

Gray's Inn, also known as Stagecoach Inn, sits near the junction of Highways 181, 79 and 41 just west of Guthrie, Kentucky.

This area is known as "Tiny Town", because of the cluster of gas stations and other businesses around the intersection, I suppose. It's located on the Kentucky - Tennessee state line, and Tennesseans come there to buy Kentucky lottery tickets. (This was true particularly before Tennessee recently started its own state lottery.)

I have learned everything I know about Gray's Inn from the historic marker on the property and from the internet.

The historic marker notes that Gray's Inn was built in 1833 as a stagecoach stop by Major John P. Gray, the man who founded Elkton. The National Park Service adds that the inn served several stage lines. I think it's likely (I am guessing) that stagecoaches from Nashville, Bowling Green, Elkton and Hopkinsville met here.

According to various internet sources, the inn was one of the stops along the Trail of Tears, when the last of the Cherokee Indian lands were seized and the Cherokees were forcibly removed to Oklahoma. We can be sure that if anyone from the group stayed in Gray's Inn, it was the military escorts. The Cherokees would have camped nearby.

It is said that White Path, a Cherokee chief who was near death, drank from the well and blessed its sweet water. He named the well "Utok Amawah" which means "well of sweet water". A few days later at Hopkinsville, KY, White Path died. His grave is located on a small knoll above Little River, across from Belmont Hill, on the site of the Trail of Tears Park in Hopkinsville.

The National Park Service notes that the inn was used as a Civil War hospital, according to local oral tradition. It also provides the following cryptic note: "Possibly birthplace of African blackface minstrel." That statement seems to suggest that early minstrel shows were performed there, and that possibly, this was the first place that they were ever performed.

At any rate, it's a handsome old house and a long and interesting history and tradition is associated with it. It's a reminder that Tiny Town has been a busy crossroads for a long time.



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Rainy Trip to Guthrie

All In The Family... Life in Christian County, Kentucky...

After a night of heavy rain

It pays to have connections, or I should say, "A friend in need is a friend indeed."

A friend from church brought out a comfy old recliner one day this week for Dennis to use. I don't know if it's a loaner or a keeper, but we're grateful for it. It gives Dennis another place where he can stretch out and rest, and he can get up from it without assistance.

Meanwhile, a friend who works at the newspaper called to say she had taken an ad for a recliner. I called the owner, a Mr. Covington, and made arrangements to look at it this morning.

On the drive over to Guthrie, Kentucky, I saw lots of evidence of the heavy rain and wind we received during the night. I guess we're having an equinox storm. I couldn't find any evidence on the weather maps that we're in the fringe area of any tropical depressions or such.

Wind-blown leaves and small branches are scattered across the smaller roadways. Weeds and tall grass along the ditches are still bent from the torrent of water that washed over them in the night. In Elkton, a little stream is completely out of its banks. I drove through occasional showers all the way over to Guthrie.

I found Mr. Covington's house easily, using the directions he gave me: "Go to the pink elephant and...". The pink elephant at the junction of Highways 79 and 41, the Pachyderm of Tinytown, is a well-known landmark in this part of the state.

Mr. Harry Covington is an interesting gentleman. He's about 75 or 80 years old, and he lives in a brick ranch home with a circle drive that he built 40 years ago.

On the wall of his office, he has an old photograph of a horse-drawn milk wagon. When Mr. Covington was a boy. his father and mother and the nine Covington children milked 30 Jersey cows and delivered milk in glass bottles all around Guthrie. Mr. Covington pointed out that Guthrie was a boom-town in those days because two major railways intersected there.

I asked him if he remembered Robert Penn Warren who was born and raised at Guthrie, and Mr. Covington described how the poet used to stroll down the sidewalks in town, wearing long stockings and old-fashioned pants that ended just below his knees.

When this old white-haired gentleman heard that my husband had just come home from Iraq, he told me that he prayed every night for peace on earth, and he had done so ever since he came home from World War II. He said he had been a Marine at Iwo Jima, and he'd never forgotten what he saw there.

On the walls of his office, Mr. Covington has pictures of his children, many newspaper clippings with stories about himself, various awards, and his Kentucky Colonel appointments from two different governors. His business card says that he is the chairman of the Guthrie Industrial Development Commission, Inc.

But back to the recliner. It's a small, sturdy recliner that sits very nicely. Mr. Covington is going to take it over to Clarksville to a shop that steam-cleans upholstery, and I will pick it up there next week.

On the way home, I stopped at the Country Pantry, an Amish bulk food store located between Guthrie and Elkton. Half a dozen automobiles were parked outside, and their "English" owners were in the store. I bought flour, yeast, flaxseed and a pound of Amish sausage.

Some things at the Amish store are amazingly cheap (like spices and yeast), while other things are surprisingly expensive They offer a larger variety of flours than any other store I know of. I always enjoy looking around there, and I'll have another excuse to stop in when I drive over to Clarksville to pick up the recliner.

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