Interesting places to explore in Cookeville

Most people in Cookeville drive past these places every week. A brick station with a steam engine out front, a storefront on West Broad, a patch of woods on Clover Hill Road. Each has a story, and most of them cost nothing to visit.

Here are eight places worth stopping for, with how to visit each one.

The depot and its steam engine

The Cookeville Depot Museum sits in the railroad station built in 1909 on West Broad Street, and the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. The city calls it the heart of the historic WestSide district. Inside, the museum tells how the Tennessee Central Railroad shaped the Upper Cumberland, and an HO-scale model shows the WestSide as it looked in the summer of 1955, which makes a good before-and-after with the street outside. A replica coal tipple loads coal into a model train.

Outside are a 1913 Baldwin steam engine, a red caboose from the 1920s, a 1960s caboose and two small track cars, with picnic tables and benches. The museum is free and open Tuesday through Saturday; the engine and cabooses can be seen from the grounds any time.

Spokes and the rail trail sculptures

Walk from the depot to the start of the Tennessee Central Heritage Rail Trail and you pass under Spokes, a 36-foot-wide, 14-foot-tall arch built from bicycles. Local artists made it in 2018 with Art Round Tennessee and the city, and most of the bikes were donated by residents. Nearby at the depot is a bike rack shaped like a banjo, built from a bicycle given by musician Jack Sallee, and at the trail's Washington Avenue and 12th Street entrance stands Awesome Fred Eagle, a weathervane that doubles as a bike rack. More sculptures made from bike parts, among them a turtle and a praying mantis, are scattered around Cane Creek Park. All of them are outdoors and free.

Two storefronts on the National Register

Two small WestSide businesses carry the same federal recognition as the depot. At 43 West Broad Street, the Harding Studio was a photography studio run by the Harding family from 1914 to 1974, and it was listed on the National Register in 1992. SoulCraft Coffee pours coffee at the same address today. Across the street at 48 West Broad, Glass Tangerine fills its windows with houseplants, and a few blocks away on South Walnut Avenue, the nonprofit Cookeville Art Studio & Gallery hangs a new exhibit every month.

A block away at 59 South Cedar Avenue, Ralph's Donut Shop was added to the Register in August 2025. Ralph and Evelyn opened it in September 1962 with six stools, in a building said to have been a bus stop and possibly a grocery before that, and they doubled its size in 1974. It still makes donuts by hand.

The History Museum

The Cookeville History Museum at 40 East Broad Street is free and open Tuesday through Saturday. Its permanent exhibit is a timeline that runs around the building, from the first people who lived in the area to the present, and the front gallery changes through the year. Each holiday season, from November into January, it fills with the Christmas Forest, more than 30 trees decorated by local clubs and organizations.

Ensor Sink: a park around a sinkhole

Ensor Sink Natural Area on Clover Hill Road is a small, wooded city park in the middle of town, and its subject is the ground beneath it. A gazebo holds an information kiosk about Cookeville's sinkhole system, and walking trails, picnic tables, a small amphitheater and a stone council ring used by scouts and nature groups surround it. It is free and open daily, closing earlier in the winter months.

City Lake and the old waterworks

City Lake Natural Area, off Bridgeway Drive, was the site of Cookeville's first water treatment facility. Today the 35-acre lake is known for fishing and kayaking, and a short trail leads past one of the old structures to a waterfall. Like Ensor Sink, it is a free city park with seasonal hours.

West End Park and the Darwin School site

West End Park on West End Street looks like any neighborhood park, with play equipment, picnic shelters and courts. The city notes that Darwin School, which served the area's African American students during segregation, stood on this ground from 1928 until it burned in 1963. It is a place to stop and remember a part of the city's history that has no building left to show it.

A night at the Performing Arts Center

For a ticketed outing, the Cookeville Performing Arts Center on East Broad is a 456-seat theater owned by the city and run by its Leisure Services department. It opened in August 1979, built with Model Cities grant money, and its main auditorium was named for Margery Hargrove in 1989. It hosts the city's Backstage Series of contemporary plays, concerts, dance and film, and the stage productions of Cookeville Children's Theatre, a company based on South Cedar Avenue. The city's box office sells tickets for its shows, and the center warns that tickets bought elsewhere may not be genuine.

Each of these is within a few minutes of downtown. Pick two or three on a free Saturday, and Cookeville will look a little different on the drive home.