I'm a railroad artist looking for a colored photo of the Southern's Knoxville station while passenger service was still running. I do paintings of depots primarily during the 40's and would like to know what colors the following depots were: Loudon TN., Lenior City TN., and Athens TN. One source I've found said the Lenior City and Athens depots in the 40's were an olive green, yellow ochre, and white. The olive green came up to the bottom of the windows, and the yellow ochre went from there to the roof. The roof supports and window trim were white. What kind of roof was on Knoxville and was the brick light tan like it has been restored to.

-- Thomas Rock (TDRProd@aol.com), October 31, 1999

Answers

Thomas, I was given a tour of the Knox. Depot by a member of the architectual firm that restored and now resides in the building (Bullock Smith And Partners). They feel strongly that the current brick colors are correct. They had to restore the building to exacting standards in order to take advantage of a federal tax incentive for restoreing it. The roof was a slightly different material, a slate or cement tile that was medium gray in color but very dirty. The tiles were also shaped differently, now they call it a carriage house or diamond pattern. Also remember that the Knox. Depot used to have a HUGE clock tower on top, you have to see an old pic. to fully appreciate the massive structure. Good B/W photos(maybe color too)can be obtained from Thompson Photo Products here in Knox. Albert E. Pope

-- Albert E. Pope (aepope@worldnet.att.net), October 31, 1999.