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In the event of an emergency at one of our companies, please contact Gulf & Ohio Railways, Inc. at 1-800-228-5146.

Gulf & Ohio Railways

Established in 1985, our short lines operate on over 200 miles of track and use approximately forty locomotives to haul freight for more than ninety industrial customers. With over seventy full and part-time employees, our railroads play an important role in the local economies where we operate.

Photo Credits: Peyton Gupton

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Our History

Founder Spotlight:
Meet Pete Claussen

Pete Claussen was born in Montclair, New Jersey and grew up in Bloomfield where he graduated from Bloomfield High School in 1958. He graduated from Lafayette College with a degree in English in 1962 and with a JD from Rutgers Law School in 1965, after marrying Linda in the fall of his senior year.

 

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Following graduation, he and Linda moved to Knoxville where Pete joined the Tennessee Valley Authority as an attorney, and subsequently as Assistant General Counsel for Environment and then a division director, after which in 1979 he became a loaned executive to the 1982 World’s Fair where he was Vice President in charge of the legal department, leaving that position at the beginning of 1983 with the wrap-up of the fair corporation.

In 1985 he established Gulf & Ohio Railways of which he now serves as Chairman. Gulf & Ohio owns and operates four railroads in the Southeastern United States, including one in Knoxville and Knox County. By 1998 Gulf & Ohio had acquired considerable locomotive rebuilding experience and it spun off Knoxville Locomotive Works, of which Pete is Chairman, and which produces low emission and battery powered locomotives.

Locally Claussen is the founder and Chairman of the Seven Islands Foundation that donated most of the property that became Tennessee’s 56th State Park, the Seven Islands State Birding Park. He also has served as Chairman of Child and Family Services, the Public Building Authority, Zoo Knoxville, and as a member of the Legacy Parks and Museum of Appalachia boards.

In Nashville he has served as Chairman of the Tennessee Chapter of the Nature Conservancy board, and as a member of the Tennessee Conservation Commission and currently serves as a member of the Tennessee Heritage Conservation Trust Fund board.

In Washington DC he has been Chairman of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association Legislative Policy Committee and a member of its Executive Committee. He is one of ten living members of the American Short Line Railroad Hall of Fame. He also has been a member of the National Portrait Gallery board, and has been Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, which houses the Linda and Pete Claussen Hall of Democracy. He also has been a member of the Smithsonian National Advisory Board and currently is a member of both Smithsonian Alumni boards.

 

 

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Corporate Leadership

Pete Claussen

Chairman

Karen Claussen

Vice Chairman

Todd Burchette

President

Greg Hall

General Counsel

Nicole Teska

Chief Financial Officer

Ronnie McKenzie

Chief Marketing Officer

Jason France

Chief Operating Officer

Allison Palmer

Vice President and Executive Assistant to the Chairman

Railroad Leadership

Everett Kelsey

Marketing Manager

Aaron Haynes

General Manager, Knoxville & Holston River Railroad

Max Medlin

General Manager, Lancaster & Chester Railroad

Dieter Bennett

General Manager, Laurinburg & Southern Railroad

Maury Coulthard

General Manager, Yadkin Valley Railroad and Coordinator Maintenance of Way

The James Park House

Gulf & Ohio's headquarters, The James Park House, is the 2nd oldest structure in Knoxville and features Knoxville's second oldest foundation dating back to 1797.

The James Park House: Over 200 Years Of Knoxville History

The James Park House sits on what was originally Lot 59 in Charles McClung's 1791 plat of Knoxville. In the year 1797, Tennessee's first Governor John Sevier built the foundation for the James Park House. Governor Sevier built part of a stone foundation and about 5 feet of wall in the 1790s before running out of money. He stopped building and moved to his Marble Springs farm South of Knoxville. Sevier sold the lot to his son, George Washington Sevier, in 1801, and the younger Sevier in turn sold it to South Carolina merchant James Dunlap in 1807. Five years later, Irish immigrant and merchant James Park — the father of 12 who twice was Knoxville’s mayor — bought it from Dunlap’s estate. Mr. Park then built the home, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in the 1820s, he built an addition that gave his home the shape of the letter “L.”

The family lived in the house 100 years and sold it in 1912. With various owners, it became offices, a World War I Red Cross workshop and tearoom, and later a medical ear, nose and throat clinic. The Knoxville Academy of Medicine bought the property in 1945 and used it until 2002 for a medical museum, offices, classes and meetings. When the academy moved, businessman Sam Furrow and Natalie Haslam, wife of Pilot Corp. founder Jim Haslam, bought the house. In 2002, Pete Claussen and his wife, Linda, purchased the house for use as Gulf & Ohio's headquarters. Working with architect Lee Ingram of the firm, Brewer Ingram Fuller, the Claussens removed several modern elements and restored the house to its 19th-century appearance. These changes included the removal of a 1968 rear medical auxiliary and auditorium, and the restoration of the house's Victorian-era porch. The renovations were largely completed in 2007. Although the Blount Mansion was built in 1790's (making it the oldest house in Knoxville), the James Park House has the oldest foundation of any Knoxville house. 

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