Darsey Alexander is standing beside the fleet.

By Charlie Hutson

LAFOLLETTE, TN (WLAF) – This is a picture of some of the buses used by the Middlesboro, Lafollette, Jacksboro, Caryville Bus line.

The picture was taken on West Central Avenue. Present day it would be in front of Community Trust Bank. In the back ground, you can see the Southern Railroad trestle that crossed West Central Avenue just above Depot Street on the south side and just below Nevada Avenue on the north side.

These busses carried many of the workers who worked at the Lafollette Shirt Company and the Southeastern Shirt Company. The were many workers from Jacksboro, Caryville and up the valley and several from Middlesboro, Kentucky, that worked at these factories. (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED – 07/28/2022-6AM)

5 Replies to “Today’s Throwback Thursday was not that long ago”

  2. I’m wondering if the part of Depot Street between Doc Seargeant Park (my childhood doc, btw) and the baseball field was part of the railroad bed back then. And was that berm/RR bed under Depot Street there raised for the RR, or is it a natural geopraphic feature?

    1. Thank you for your response, Rick.

      Yes, that was part of the railroad path. Walking that stretch after school in the early 1960s, there were still cinders and remnants of where trains came that way.

      Best,
      Jim
      WLAF

      1. I found a USGS topo of La Follette from 1936. It looks like there was a spur jutting out a bit where that track crossed the berm on Depot, but it was open between the spur and the Beech Street side. The map shows a creek or branch running from the rec center/library, through the current baseball field, through Seargeant Park, and on down into Big Creek. So it appears the berm was purpose built for the RR.
        So now I wonder, was the branch incorporated into the storm drainage system at that time?
        Personal experience, pictures, and family stories aside there seems to be a lot of mundane La Follette history and evolution that can still surprise. Like CCC Camp #16 shown on the same 1936 map, near the RR spurs on the east side of Big Creek, where the Fairgrounds used to be kinda between east and west 4th street, but with the encircling road oval oriented north and south rather than nw to se like the streets are today.
        Very fun. Thanks for the pic! It excited a lot of interest up here in Blacksburg!

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