Hmmm….any comms here anons?
GROK:
I assume you're asking about the "C&O desk." The C&O desk is one of six desks historically used by U.S. presidents in the Oval Office. It gets its name from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), for whose owners it was originally built around 1920 by Rorimer-Brooks, a furniture maker. It’s a walnut double-pedestal desk, styled after an 18th-century Chippendale design, with burlwood veneer and an understated, elegant look—less ornate than some of its Oval Office counterparts.
This desk has a unique story. After a series of railway mergers, it ended up with the Chessie System, and between 1969 and 1974, White House Curator Clement Conger convinced Hays T. Watkins of Chessie to loan it to the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the U.S. Department of State. Later, in 1987, CSX Corporation (Chessie’s successor) donated it to the White House. Before reaching the Oval Office, it was used in other White House spaces, like the Oval Office Study, by Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. George H. W. Bush, however, made it famous by choosing it as his Oval Office desk during his presidency (1989–1993)—the only president to use it there, making it the shortest-serving Oval Office desk, with just one four-year term.
Bush had a personal attachment to it, having used it as vice president and in the White House residence before bringing it to the Oval Office. After his term, it stayed in the White House collection, and a replica now sits in the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, as part of a full-scale Oval Office reproduction. It’s a quiet piece of history—practical, not flashy, and tied to a specific moment in presidential taste. Anything specific you want to know about it?