L&N Station (Knoxville)

Built in 1905 by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and designed by its chief engineer, Richard Montfort, the station was renovated for use in the 1982 World's Fair, and is currently home to Knox County's STEM-based magnet high school, the L&N STEM Academy.[3] The L&N Station is now home to the L&N STEM Academy, a magnet high school which focuses on science, technology, engineering, and math.[4] The L&N Station occupies the southwest corner of the intersection of Western Avenue, Broadway, Henley Street, and Summit Hill Drive, opposite Old City Hall.[5] The building's most recognizable feature is its northeast corner tower, which rises three stories, and is topped by a pitched, clay-tiled roof with decorated dormers.The north side of the west wing originally included frosted glass doors and glazed transoms, which have been restored.[1] While railroads had reached Knoxville by 1855, the L&N did not have direct access to the city until the early 1900s, due to its rivalry with the Southern Railway and its predecessors.[6] Deeming the agreement void, the L&N made plans to build a direct line from Cincinnati to Atlanta by way of Knoxville.[1] Author James Agee describes the L&N Station in several scenes in his book, A Death In the Family, which is set in Knoxville in 1915.In an early scene, while walking through Knoxville with his father, they pass the station, and Agee noted how its stained glass "smouldered like an exhausted butterfly."In another scene, while crossing the Asylum (Western) Avenue Viaduct, he wrote, "the L&N yards lay on his left, feint skeins of steel, blocked shadows, little spumes of steam."[1][10][11] From 2002 to 2004, a restaurant, Ye Olde Steakhouse, operated out of the station while it repaired damage from a fire at its location on Chapman Highway.Students were still required to meet the academic standards presented by Knox County Schools but the material was delivered through the use of iPads, block scheduling, and cross planning through departments.[4] In September 2013, former L&N STEM Academy student Jessica Rainwater alleged that the school helped her cheat to allow her to gain credit for a course she was taking.The students wanted to find "an economically friendly way of trying to get rid of bodily wastes in space rather than bringing them back home."[29] In August 2015, a University of Tennessee at Knoxville student broke into the school and fell from a third floor window, about 40 ft from the ground.