Photo by Hank Cromer a nearly lifelong friend of mine who I just added to this group. Hank caught this on the fly with his cell when stopped at the crossing in downtown Mt. Vernon by the southbound unit train which had just left the Hanson Quarry bound for the power plant in Georgia on October 24. The building in the background is the old Rockcastle Hotel, built in 1913 partially from stone quarried on the KC in nearby Wildie, KY. The building was home to the local newspaper, the Mt. Vernon Signal, in the 1980s and 90s, surviving a fire in the late 80s. It has sadly sat empty and boarded up for the past several years. Plans were mentioned a few years ago to turn it into a boutique hotel to capitalize on the nearby tourist trade in Renfro Valley and Berea, but nothing ever came of that. My mother worked with a lady who is now in her 70s who could remember when her family ran the restaurant located on the trackside ground floor of the hotel building during World War II, and seeing troop trains come through. The depot was diagonally across the tracks from the hotel, where the city parking lot now is just to the right of the van in this picture.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 14:05:29 +0000
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