CC&O - Kingsport Depot

The Clinchfield railroad came to Kingsport in 1909, but was not completed until 1915. A boxcar served as the first depot. The 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of the city of Kingsport shows a "passenger and freight station with a platform" located between the Clinchfield Portland Cement Company and the Kingsport Brick Corporation.

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The Archives of Appalachia has extensive railroad collections that include administrative documents: corporate minutes and reports, financial and marketing files, personnel and accident files, and photographs, as well as engineering drawings and blueprints, documenting the preliminary construction, management, operation, and the financing of the railroad company.  The drawing at left, from the James A. Goforth Collection, corroborates the following newspaper article, as written across the page is the statement "this building totally destroyed by fire January 12, 1917."

An article in the Morristown Evening Mail, dated January 13, 1917, reported that the CC&O depot in Kingsport burned.  The loss was estimated at $12,000 for the partially insured building.  It was reported that a "speedy reconstruction" would commence "because of the volume of shipments."  

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On January 25, 1917, the Morristown Evening Mail reported that CC&O would appropriate $50,000 for a new passenger station to "take the place of the unpretentious station destroyed by fire recently."

This combination station drawing, created by B. M. Montague, is dated January 26, 1917.  

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On April 4th, 1917, work began to build a depot in Kingsport.  The new passenger and freight depot, designed by New York Architect, Clinton McKenzie, was completed on November 20, 1917, at a cost of $31,000.   An article by Gray Stohart, for the Society of Architectural Historians, entitled "Clinchfield Railroad Station," describes the building as a mixture of Beaux-Arts, Italianate, and Colonial Revival. The building is a one-story rectangle with an impressive central clock tower, which features "four chimney-like masses...a brick balcony..., and a gable roof."  Stohart describes the brackets supporting the pyramidal roof as Italiante.  The northwest end features a portico.  

The Completion Report description given in the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway Records describes the superstructure as follows:  Brick passenger station 36' x 160' x 16' 6" high, having basement 19' x 36' and tower 28' x 28' x 54' high with clock - concrete floors, tile roofing - main waiting room, colored waiting room, baggage and express room, ticket office, toilets and etc., - steam heated, electric lights, plumbing, etc;  All in accordance with plan by Clinton McKensie, Architect, New York, and on file in Chief Engineer's office.  Platform 6" concrete, side walk 6" concrete, concrete curb.  This work was done under the supervision of the Kingsport Improvement Corporation.

Two deeds dated June 10, 1918, show a transfer of two parcels of land, each 90 ft deep and 75 ft frontage on Main St, and having an estimated market value of $3000 from Kingsport Improvement Corporation to CC&O.

Another $8600 was spent in April 1919, for grading and paving station grounds, building sidewalks, planting trees, etc.  All on railroad right of way.  Kingsport Improvement Corporation donated the trees and shrubbery estimated at $300. 

The November 1919 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows the newly built depot described as in the Completion Report above.

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In a book entitled Kingsport, the statement is made that Kingsport was created for the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway, which played a vital role in the the transformation of the "New South," and the city of Kingsport.

The October 1925 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map shows a large, separate freight building with offices, freight area and covered platform seen to the left of the depot on this postcard.

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This 1928 photograph depicts the importance of the depot front and center in the city of Kingsport.

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This postcard gives a bird's eye view of Kingsport from "The Cement Hill," so named for the industrial area of the Dixie Cement Corporation, formerly the Clinchfield Portland Cement Company.  This colorful depiction emphasizes only the beautiful areas of Kingsport, complete with mountain ranges in the background, and romanticizes the dominant and towering depot over the city as the train glides obscurely by on the outskirts just below a lush and flowering hillside.

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The photograph at left is dated 1951.  Passenger service ended in 1954.  

Today...

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Fortunately, this historic depot, so integral to the history of the city of Kingsport, was not destroyed.  Today the station houses Citizens Banks at 101 East Main Street.  

CC&O - Kingsport Depot