(The following story by Stanley Dunlap appeared on the Tennessean website on July 16, 2009.)
JACKSON, Tenn. — In a 1950 museum picture, 9-year-old Lawrence Taylor can be seen among hundreds gathered in downtown Jackson to celebrate famous railroad engineer Casey Jones.
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The occasion marked the release of a stamp in honor of Jones, who died in 1900 saving lives during a train wreck.
“I remember my dad giving me a hat and (red) bandanna that day that I’ve kept forever,” Taylor said of the typical work outfit often worn by Jones. Taylor is now director of the Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum.
Jones’ renovated former residence reopened to visitors this month after the opening in June of a new 8,000-square-foot train museum next to the home. Designed as an 1890s train station, the new museum offers more than six times the space for the memorabilia and artifacts once crammed inside the home.
With exhibits moved out of the restored home, it now resembles more of a place someone actually lived in than a museum, said Norma Taylor, who works as the museum and home’s historian.
The front area where the exhibits were kept has become a dining room and parlor.
The rooms have been decorated with period-style furniture, from a dining room chest to a wooden dining table and chairs.
“Both rooms had exhibits in them and all over the walls since the museum opened in 1956, so there was major remodeling needed. The windows got new woodwork,” Norma Taylor said. “The walls were in bad shape, so Dee and Vic Wallace helped get them repaired, and Deborah Laman picked out wall paper that looked like it came from (the early 1900s).”
Because there aren’t any actual images, the home is decorated as close as possible to how it probably looked while Jones was alive, Norma Taylor said.
“We have some pictures of how the home looked on the outside, but we don’t have any that show (how) it was inside,” she said. “Most people didn’t take many pictures in the early 1900s, and in fact only three pictures of Casey Jones exist.
“We take pictures all the time, but they didn’t have the access to camera and film as easily.”