Standing at the intersection of Highway 41A and University Avenue in the paved sidewalk in front of the 1960s DEPOT, a person has a good view of the downtown area of Sewanee. The land rises steadily from the depot uphill to the spire of the Episcopal parish church. The first structure on that site was wooden and built when the parish formed in 1872. Prosperity allowed for the parish to build a permanent stone church in 1891, and the former sanctuary was moved across the street to the area where the Sewanee Elementary School stands today. It became the church and school for the community's blacks, as Jim Crow segregation developed across the country. From this elevation, one can easily understand the sense of the commercial/service/retail area of the community being "down town" from the college campus and related residential builidngs.
In fact, the creators of the University determined how far would extend the "depot village" and how separated the services there should be from the educational campus on higher ground. Decided in the 1860s and affirmed in 1871, "all business houses should be confined to the vicinity of the railroad station, by which arrangement the village of Sewanee has grown up around the station." The topography made the division easy to discern. But "downtown" and "village" are two labels used by different parts of the community's population today carrying emotional weight not obvious to people from outside Sewanee.
George Fairbanks' History of the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee, from its founding by the Southern Bishops, Clergy and Laity of the Episcopal Church in 1857 to the year 1905, p. 393.