Old depot in Hopkinsville, KY
I took care of two neighbor ladies' flowers and their seven dogs for several days over the past weekend, When the ladies arrived back home again, they insisted on taking me out to eat. We went to the Thai restaurant (the Main Street Grill on Ninth) in Hopkinsville .
After lunch, we stopped at the old L & N Depot, now the Pennyrile Arts Council building, and viewed the photos on exhibit. Three photographer friends have put together a show: "A Yank, A Canuck and A Southern Belle." (The Yank is Jeremy Easley, a native of Illinois; the Canuck is Judy Campbell, a native of Canada; and the Southern Belle is Nancy Stalls, a native of Murray, Kentucky).
I enjoyed the photographs and equally enjoyed looking around the old train depot. (It was built in 1892.) I've been in the depot before to buy tickets for the Alhambra Theater, but it's been a while. Out of respect for copyrights, I didn't do any closeups of the photos, but here are some general views around the depot.
The photography exhibit was held in the depot's southmost room. The windows in the east wall look out onto the platform and train tracks. A large door facilitated the loading and unloading of luggage and parcels.
On the opposite wall in the exhibition room, the windows look out onto the parking lot. With large windows on both the east and west sides of the building, the depot has an abundance of natural light. I didn't have to use a flash for these photos.
A setting of L&N dinnerware and a diner-car menu are displayed in a glass case in the lobby.In the reflection, you can see one of the neighbor ladies, making a call on her cell phone. She was arranging to purchase one of the photographs in the exhibit.The Wikipedia entry for Hopkinsville's L&N depot says the ticket office connected to three waiting rooms -- the ladies' waiting room, the colored waiting room, and the general waiting room. One of the ticket windows can be seen in the photos at left.
The rooms in the north end of the building are used for offices. The depot has two of these little rounded-out rooms on its train-tracks (east) side. Photos of the building's exterior can be seen in a 2006 Prairie Bluestem post, "Hopkinsville's Railroad".
2 comments:
You were very nice to dog-sit for the ladies' seven dogs.
I know some human buddies with seven dogs: Weeza and Bob in PETaluma. (I like to capitalize on the PET part of the town name.) My dog-ma sez they never get to go anywhere together 'cuz the dogs are rescue dogs with special health needs.
I have to tell you that the Hopkinsville L & N Depot reminds us of Whistle Stop Cafe in the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, adapted from the Fannie Flagg novel. Ms. Flagg wrote a cookbook, it's said, 'cuz she received thousands of requests from all over asking for recipes from the cafe of her Alabama childhood that was the model for the cafe in her novel.
I love your photos! I live in Hopkinsville and have never been to the depot!
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