Skip to main content

Exploring Cookeville, Tennessee

This past July, my family and I did a weekend trip to Nashville.  We ended staying in Cookeville for the weekend.  Cookeville sits off of Interstate 40 about one hour east of Nashville.  It is the home of Tennessee Tech University and has a charming downtown.

When you visit Downtown Cookeville, you can't help but notice the large neon sign for Cream City Ice Cream.  Since 1950, Cream City has been the ice cream spot for residents and visitors to Cookeville.  Typically serving 30 flavors of ice cream, Cream City is one of the many examples of small town charm found with the town.

The pagoda-style Cookeville Depot is a town gathering spot.
Across West Broad Street from Cream City is the historic Cookeville Depot.  The depot was built by the Tennessee Central Railway in 1909.  Today, the Cookeville Depot is home to the Cookeville Depot Museum and a number of historic trains.  The depot also serves as a central gathering space for the town as the trains are a great place for kids to explore while adults can sit outside the depot possibly enjoying their ice cream.

The Cookeville Rail Depot is also the western terminus for the Tennessee Central Heritage Rail Trail.  Currently, the Tennessee Central Trail runs about five miles east to the town of Algood.  It is envisioned that the trail will run a total of 19 miles to the town of Monterey.  The trail follows the historic routing of the Nashville and Knoxville Railroad.  That railroad, which was founded in 1884, was eventually absorbed into the Tennessee Central.

Along both West and East Broad Street in Cookeville, one can find numerous restaurants, candy and gift shops, boutiques, and more.  For dinner, we ate at Crawdaddy's West Side Grill, an excellent Cajun/New Orleans restaurant along East Broad Street.

Cookeville is a great central location if you want to explore the Cumberland Plateau and Central Tennessee.  An hour outside of Nashville, it is very close to some of Tennessee's more popular state parks.  Fall Creek Falls is about one hour south along TN 111.  Standing Stone State Park is about a 30 minute drive north on Highway 136.

Further Reading:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Pollasky Bridge

The Pollasky Bridge near modern day Friant is a ruined highway bridge which was completed during early 1906 as part of the Fresno-Fresno Flats Road.  The structure is one of the oldest known arch concrete spans to have been constructed in California.  The bridge briefly carried California State Route 41 following the destruction of the Lanes Bridge in 1940.  The Pollasky Bridge itself was destroyed by flooding during 1951, but the ruins can still be found on the Madera County side of the San Joaquin River.   Pictured as the blog cover is the Pollasky Bridge as it was featured in the 1913 book "The Concrete Bridge."  The structure can be seen crossing the San Joaquin River near Friant below on the 1922 United States Geological Survey Map.   Part 1; the history of the Pollasky Bridge The Pollasky Bridge site is near modern day Friant of Fresno County.  The community of Friant was established as Converse Ferry during 1852 on the San Joaquin Rive...

Trimmer Springs Road (Fresno County)

Trimmer Springs Road is an approximately forty-mile rural highway located in Fresno County.  The corridor begins near in California State Route 180 in Centerville and extends to Blackrock Road at the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada range near the Pacific Gas & Electric Company town of Balch Camp. The roadway is named after the former Trimmer Springs Resort and was originally constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.  Trimmer Springs Road was heavily modified and elongated after construction of Pine Flat Dam broke ground in 1947.   Part 1; the history of Trimmer Springs Road Much of the original alignment of Trimmer Springs Road was constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.   The  Kings River Lumber Company  had been established in 1888 in the form of a 30,000-acre purchase of forest lands in Converse Basin.  This purchase lied immediately west of Grant Grove and came to be known as "Millwood."  The co...

When was Ventura Avenue east of downtown Fresno renamed to Kings Canyon Road? (California State Route 180)

California State Route 180 was one of the original Sign State Routes designated in August 1934.  The highway east of Fresno originally utilized what was Ventura Avenue and Dunlap Road to reach what was then General Grant National Park.  By late year 1939 the highway was extended through the Kings River Canyon to Cedar Grove.   In 1940 General Grant National Park would be expanded and rebranded as Kings Canyon National Park.  The Kings Canyon Road designation first appeared in publications circa 1941 when the California State Route 180 bypass of Dunlap was completed.  Kings Canyon Road ultimately would replace the designation of Dunlap Road from Dunlap to Centerville and Ventura Avenue west to 1st Street in Fresno.   The Kings Canyon Road would remain largely intact until March 2023 when the Fresno Council designated Cesar Chavez Boulevard.  Cesar Chavez Boulevard was designated over a ten-mile corridor over what was Kings Canyon Road, remaini...