Cowan Takes Advantage Of Railroad Charm

Cowan, Tn., has long been a railroad town and, even though the passenger train era is in the distant past, it still retains its railroad charm with a restored depot museum and 35 freight trains going past each day.

 

And it has a working railroad hotel in the form of the Franklin-Pearson House.

 

The Pearsons, who have been in Cowan for five generations, rescued the remnants of a formerly much larger hotel that suffered a ruinous fire.

 

The Pearsons operate a seven-room bed and breakfast and, in their spare time, run the nearby Sernicola's Restaurant as well.

The team includes Jarod Pearson and sisters, Laura Pearson-Garner and Mary Pearson-Smith.  All three siblings are involved both in the hotel and in the restaurant. 

 

Their father, Steve Pearson, did the restoration work on the pressed tin ceiling that had been heavily damaged in the fire. Their mother, Rose Sernicola-Pearson, led the development of the two businesses.

 

Both venues attract many guests from nearby Sewanee as well as North Alabama and other more-distant points.

 

The Pearsons were also involved in helping to restore a run-down service station across the street to an intriguing replica of an old Texaco.

 

There are efforts to convert the old Mountain Goat Train, that ran up to Sewanee and beyond, into a greenway trail. That would be another big boost to Cowan if it could develop its own version of the Virginia Creeper Trail that is a signature feature at Abingdon, Va. Five miles of the former Mountain Goat rail bed opened last year as the Mountain Goat Trail between Sewanee and Monteagle.

 

Jarod Pearson compiled this synopsis of Cowan's lodging history:

 

Cowan was a relatively quiet place following the Civil War.  By 1881, The University of the South was growing to become a prestigious institution, and then the Tennessee Coal and Iron Railroad purchased Cowan’s “Sewanee Furnace” and introduced a large scale operation.  The furnace grew to become the largest producer of pig iron in the entire South.  This led to tremendous growth and economic prosperity for Cowan and prompted the need for a more upscale hotel.

 

Two employees of the furnace, a Mr. Ben Glidwell and Tom Kelton put their resources togetherand built a two-story brick structure next door to University House.  The business opened in 1886 and was leased and operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Buchay.

 

Besides the overnight accommodations, this facility featured a top-notch restaurant that provided contract meal service to railroad passengers.  Through the first few decades of operation, train #3 stopped in Cowan at 7:30 a.m. for breakfast and train #6 stopped at 6:00 p.m. for dinner.

 

As the trains pulled in to the Cowan Depot, the restaurant waiter would stand outside the front door and ring a bell signaling for passengers to come over and be seated.  Once inside, the passengers were greeted by an elegant dining room with crisp linens, china and crystal.  The tables were pre-set with food already cooked and ready to serve “family-style”.  After finishing the meal, the passengers would return to the train and continue on their journey.

 

Railroad historians are quick to point out that Cowan’s Franklin House operation bears very close resemblance to the famous Harvey Houses that were connected with the Santa Fe Railroad in the American West.  Harvey Houses were famous all over the country for their incredible food, accommodations that served rail passengers from 1875 until the 1930’s. Although the Franklin House was nowhere near as famous as the Harvey Houses were, it was well known throughout the South and was published in railway guides as a great place to stay and dine.

 

The introduction of railroad dining cars in the late 1920’s meant that contract meal services at the Franklin House were no longer necessary.  Although the restaurant stayed in business, the hotel portfolio became more and more crucial.  With the demolition of the University House next door across Miller Street (now East Cumberland Street), the Franklin House adapted to also serve as a boarding house for railroad employees and for Cowan families in transition.

 

The Franklin House also earned revenue by leasing out storefronts (much the way hotels do in large cities).  The longest running leasehold was a barber shop followed by a pharmacy, both of which lasted well beyond the Franklin House hotel operation itself.

 

The Parker Hotel

With the advent of the jet airliner and growing popularity of the motorcar, passenger rail service began a long period of decline.  The Franklin House was less visible and less important, but was still a valuable enterprise.  Sometime in the late 1940’s, the Franklin House sold and was reinvented as the Parker Hotel.

 

The new owners of the Parker Hotel put on a new image by painting the entire building white, converting more downstairs rooms into retail storefronts, and downgrading the restaurant to a casual coffee shop.  Although Cowan was changing economically and demographically, the Parker Hotel was a relatively stable operation up until the construction of Interstate 24 over Monteagle Mountain.  With that, the hotel began a steady decline.

 

On May 9, 1965, disaster struck downtown Cowan.  The hotel caught fire and was engulfed in flames requiring the service of seven area fire departments.   The intense fire spread to other buildings and caused extensive damage throughout the oldest part of downtown Cowan. 

 

The following day’s newspaper reported the cause of the fire as unknown and that there were no injuries.  More than half of the structure was completely gutted with the remaining portion having extensive smoke and water damage.  The newspaper reported the sad news that one of Cowan’s most famous and most important landmarks was lost forever and that the remains of the building would probably be razed.

 

The Surviving Section

 

The section of the building that survived the fire did not meet its demise as originally planned.  Instead, business owners Curtis Jackson (Jackson’s Barber Shop) and Blevins Rittenberry (Rittenberry Pharmacy) each bought their respective sections and reopened for business.  The original stairway was destroyed in the fire, so Mr. Jackson built a new stairway to access the upstairs from one of the front entrances.  Using the few rooms above the barber shop, Mr. Jackson opened a small boarding house for low-income individuals.  (This operation continued up until the property was acquired by the Pearson family in 2002.)  The section over Rittenberry Pharmacy was sealed off from the rest of the building and subsequently abandoned. 

 

Although it was a relief to Cowan residents that part of the hotel survived, it was no comfort whatsoever that Cowan entered a long period of economic decline.  Besides the loss of the hotel in 1965, passenger train service discontinued as well rendering the old Cowan Depot useless. 

 

Cowan residents put their best foot forward in the mid-1970’s by preserving the depot and creating a railroad museum and by turning the downtown rail yard into a park area.  Later that same decade, Cowan lost its two largest industries – Marquette Cement Company and Genesco shoe factory.  In the following two decades, Cowan’s economic decline continued with businesses closing, buildings falling into disrepair, and families relocating.

 

Effort was made to breathe life back into the old hotel building at one point in the early 1990’s.  Although the pharmacy relocated to another building, an antique dealer bought the buildind and put in a full retail floor incorporating almost the entire downstairs.  This operation was short-lived, but under a new set of owners a new stairway was built to the hotel rooms that were formerly sealed off and the space rented as one single apartment.  Unfortunately, no investment was made in the structure and appearance of the building itself, and it deteriorated into a prominent downtown eyesore.

The Franklin-Pearson House

 

The Rittenberry half of the building was back on the real estate market by late 2001, but there were scarcely any interested buyers.

The Pearsons put together a proposal in the spring of 2002 to buy the entire building and restore it to its original purpose.  Both owners agreed to sell, and by summer the Pearsons started construction on the Franklin-Pearson House, a Bed and Breakfast Inn using the remaining rooms from the original Franklin House hotel.

 

The project was one of the largest building restorations in Cowan history.  The rooms were re-equipped with the original basins and bath fixtures, the former pharmacy storefront was converted into an elegant lobby, and one of the downstairs storefronts was made into two additional guest rooms.

 

The hotel project restored a tired old structure into a gleaming downtown landmark and helped spawn other revitalization projects.  Cowan turned from four decades of steady decline to a new a new phase of economic growth and revitalization.

The Franklin-Pearson House opened for business in August 2003 and picked up where the Franklin House and Parker Hotel left off – providing quaint accommodations in a small town setting.  Like its predecessors, the Franklin-Pearson House serves Sewanee families, business travelers, and tourists who enjoy a scenic getaway in the Tennessee hills.

 

Today, the Franklin-Pearson House is affectionately known as the “Old Hotel” in downtown Cowan and is daily recalling Cowan’s long history of service and hospitality.

 

Cowan’s first hotel was a two-story frame hotel building constructed in the late 1850’s.  University House was the original name of the entity, although it was later called Cowan Hotel and at some point called Commercial Hotel.   The only known photo shows the structure to be quite attractive with a full-length veranda.

The building was constructed immediately after the Sewanee Mining Company donated several thousand acres of mountain land to the Episcopal Church for building The University of the South.  According to the oldest plat of Cowan, dated 1858, the hotel was located at the corner of Miller and Wetmore Streets.  (Today, this is the corner of East Cumberland and North Tennessee Avenue where the Cowan Welcome Center is located.)

 

Being on the railroad mainline, the hotel served a critical purpose.  Although Sewanee had its own rail service, affectionately known as “The Mountain Goat”, it hardly qualified as a rail “connection”.  Service was sporadic, at best.  Sewanee bound passengers who arrived in Cowan discovered that trains to and from the mountain did not run on a predictable schedule, and sometimes did not operate with passenger cars.

 

The accommodations at University House allowed Sewanee bound passengers to cool their heels, rest, and figure out the best way to get to Sewanee.  Some waited for the next train up the Goat Track, some would hire a stage coach, and some would make the long steep hike up the mountain.  (It’s worth noting that passengers would ride in freight cars on the Mountain Goat if no passenger coach was available!)

 

The building also accommodated a retail store front that served as Cowan Post Office for a brief period.  The University House continued to provide accommodations well into the 20th Century.  It was demolished sometime in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s.

 

The only known relic that still exists from the University House is a light fixture that now hangs at Cowan Railroad Museum.  The cistern that supplied water for the hotel was recently uncovered and will soon be landmarked.

 

Other Places of Hospitality in Cowan

 

The Williams House

 

The Williams House, located on West Cumberland Street, is one of Cowan’s oldest homes.  Although originally built as a single family residence, the house was reconfigured as a boarding house following World War II when Cowan's growing industrial base caused a housing shortage.  The small apartments at the Williams House and the tiny one-room cottage in the back yard were rented to Genesco employees at the local shoe factory.  Today, the Williams House consist of two apartments plus the one-room cottage.  The current owners plan to remodel the upstairs apartments in the near future to make space for future tenants.

 

The Section House

 

The two-story house on North Cherry Street was a railroad “section house” built in the early 20th Century to serve railroad operating crews, also known as section crews.  Similar houses were built in railroad towns throughout the country, however this is one of few still in existence.  This particular section house was originally located on Cumberland Street and then moved in the 1950's to its present location to make room for a new gas station and service garage.

 

The Marquette Hotel

 

The Marquette Hotel is located in Cowan’s Slagtown community.  Although referred to locally as a hotel, the building was a boarding housecontructed by Cumberland-Portland Cement to accomodate workers.  The Marquette Hotel is under caring ownership with four rented apartments. 

 

Lakeview Hotel

The Lakeview Hotel was built in the late 1920's to accomodate visitors and workers at the Lakeview community, a mountain logging community southwest of Cowan.  The hotel is referenced in Agnes Pearson's Memoirs of a Mountain School Teacher.  When the logging operation left Cowan in the late 1940's, the Lakeview Community was abandoned.  The hotel fell to the ground in the 1970's.

 

Cumberland Place Bed and Breakfast

 

The “bed and breakfast” concept using private homes was a fast-growing trend in the 1980’s, and a home owner on East Cumberland Street hopped on the bandwagon.  Cumberland Place existed for a short period of time and mainly served Sewanee visitors.  Cumberland Place is now the home of Dr. Robbe Delcamp, the organist and Choirmaster at The University of the South.  His wife, Susan Rupert, teaches music at Sewanee's School of Theology.

 

Rolling Acres Motel

 

The popularity of Highway 41A prompted investors to build a 22-unit motor inn on the west side of Cowan in the late 1950's.  The brick structure was built on a hill overlooking the vast cotton fields that characterize the surrounding area.  Under the ownership of the O'Keefe family, the facility was expanded to 32-units in the mid-1960's and upgraded with a full-service restaurant, swimming pool, in-room telephones, and other amenities that earned the facility a Triple-A rating among motor clubs.  The restaurant was a popular establishment for Cowan and Winchester residents who discovered the food and the atmosphere comparable to some Nashville's better restaurants.  A change of ownership resulted in the restaurant's closure in the mid-1980's.  The motel went into decline after years of neglect and finally closed in 2001.  The building fell victim to arson in 2005 and was razed the next year.

 

Information for this article was gathered from the writings of Jim and Jenny Lou Brock, Harry Easter, and Andrew Rittenberry with personal contributions by Curtis Jackson and Howard Coulson.   Compiled by L. Jarod Pearson, proprietor of the Franklin-Pearson House.