Fredericktown's runaway train station found a home at Unusual Junction

History Knox

Mark Sebastian Jordan authors a column each Saturday morning at Knox Pages reflecting on the community's history.

FREDERICKTOWN — While some of Knox County’s old railroad depots are still in existence — and some are even in some sort of use—there is one that is long gone, but not in the usual way.

Fredericktown’s depot can no longer be seen along the bike path that goes where the railroad once did. But it wasn’t torn down, at least not in a permanent way.

Instead, it was disassembled in the 1980s when it was sold to an entrepreneur who had other plans for it. The entire building was transported to a spot on U.S. 36, between Coshocton and Newcomerstown.

The building was moved to Coshocton County, where it served for many years as a restaurant in a rail-themed site called Unusual Junction. (Image source: Unusual Junction’s Facebook page.)

It was added to a collection of retired railcars and a caboose, and eventually opened as a restaurant. The whole complex is known as Unusual Junction and includes, of all things, a bridal outfit shop.

Working in the Coshocton County archaeological dig site, the author’s friend and fellow artist, writer, and musician Lucas Hargis examines a piece of an ancient ceramic pot that he just dug out of the ground, exposing it to light for the first time in a couple thousand years. (Photo by Mark Jordan.)

The funny thing for me is that I ate at the diner at Unusual Junction several times over the years when I volunteered at an archaeological dig north of that spot, without having the slightest idea that the building was repurposed from Fredericktown.

I can’t reveal the location of the dig, which is on private land, but it is an ancient village site near an area where American Indians used to mine flint. The hills of Coshocton and Licking County were so renowned for the quality of their flint that natives would come from all over to dig.

It appears that this village hosted many of those visitors, for it is layered with astonishing quantities of debitage, which is the term for the flint chips knocked off of tools, spear points, and arrowheads as they were being made.

At that site, I’ve excavated debitage, arrowheads, ceramic fragments of bowls, and more. I think I still hold the record for the oldest point found there, one that was approximately 11,000 years old.

We were always given gloves to sort the sandy soil in the sifters, but I always ended up chucking the gloves to go barehanded, despite the way the gravelly soil would shred my fingertips, because I found that after a while, I could detect pottery fragments by touch before I even looked at them.

The author holding sherds of the large pot that he and Lucas Hargis discovered. The presence of an adjacent Adena point suggests that this was an Adena pot that shattered during firing. Unfortunately, not enough pieces remained to reconstruct the pot. (Photo by Mark Jordan.)

It’s an exciting way to get in touch, literally, with ancient history.

In the past, when we got tired around midday (and, believe me, archaeological excavation is exhausting work), we would go down to Unusual Junction and have a bit of lunch. The food was simple diner fare, but it was extremely well made.

Alas, when I went to research this article, I discovered that it closed a few years back and shows no signs of reopening any time soon. It’s a shame, because the place was good.

It makes me wonder what will now become of the old Fredericktown depot. If it should ever go up for sale, it would be an amazing journey if it could somehow be brought back to Fredericktown.

But if the rail cars get sold off as a collection with the building, it’s hard to say where the depot’s end of the line might be.

At any rate, I bring up the subject of archaeology in this week’s column because it will be a major player in the next column I’m working on, which may prove to be a two-parter or even more.

It all ties together sooner or later.