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Located in the heart of Cowan’s historic downtown area, the Cowan Railroad Museum works to preserve the community’s railroading history, all housed in an original 1904 train station once owned and operated by the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad.

Situated in what is known as Railroad Park at 108 S. Front Street, the museum officially opened in 1976.

“How we ended up with the museum is in the mid-1960s passenger rail service between Nashville and Chattanooga was discontinued by the railroad and the Cowan Depot was more or less abandoned,” Board President Jarod Pearson said.

The building had no official purpose at the time, and it was slated for demolition by the railroad.

“Some civic leaders in Cowan and business owners decided to intervene and stop that from happening so they formed an organization known as the Cowan Beautification Commission and the purpose was to save the depot from demolition and turn the former rail yard around it into a park,” he said.

The railroad then sold the train station to the Cowan Beautification Commission for $1. The only catch was they had to move the station away from the active tracks that run through Cowan to make it safe for visitors.

“It is still in the former rail yard, but it is a safer distance from the tracks,” Pearson said.

Reorganized as the nonprofit Cowan Railroad Museum Inc., the museum began collecting historic artifacts and documenting the history of the depot and the railroad in the community.

One highlight currently on display in the museum is working live steam model locomotive built in 1910 in Sherwood, Tennessee by brothers A.J. Robinson Sr. and W.L. Robinson

The 1/12-scale model comes in at 4 ft. 11 inches in length and runs on 4-3/4 gage track. It is capable of pulling several hundred pounds on level track. At the time the model was built, commercially available model parts were nearly nonexistent, so the brothers had to cast their own parts and pieces which were then machined in a barn.

Another museum highlight is an H/O scale model railroad depicting the town of Cowan and its rail operations as they would have appeared during the 1950s.

While there is a significant amount of history housed inside the Cowan Railroad Museum, it would be impossible not to notice the Porter 242 steam locomotive located next to the museum.

“The locomotive you see in the park is a very rare model,” Pearson said. “These locomotives were built for yard operations and the one we have in Cowan was originally owned by a brick foundry in Georgia.”

The locomotive was eventually bought by a railroad historian who used for demonstration runs for the National Railway Historical Society before selling it to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga. It has been at the Cowan Railroad Museum since the early 1980s.

“It was permanently retired by the time we got it and decommissioned,” Pearson said. “It is a rare piece though.”

While the Cowan Railroad Museum tells the story of railroading in the area, it also documents the history of businesses and industry in the community.

“The railroad is interconnected with all of the area industries,” Pearson said. “The reason that we got the railroad is largely due to the discovery of coal deposits in the south Cumberland Mountains. The same investors who were building the coal mining industry were also the investors who want to build the railroads to get the coal to market and then it goes a step further.”

Pearson said visitors to the Cowan Railroad Museum become part of the story when they take the time to visit and learn.

“This is a story of industry, of travel of culture, education and a way of life that is continually unfolding and we love to tell stories, we love to retell stories and we think that when they visit our museum, they become part of the story as well,” he said.

The Cowan Railroad Museum is open May through October from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Thursday through Sunday and also 1-4 p.m. Sunday. For more information or to schedule a group tour, please call 931-967-3078 and leave a voicemail. Group tours a free for school and summer camp groups as well as military and related organizations.