This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2007) |
Nashville, TN | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The former Union Station, converted to a hotel, seen in 2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
General information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Location | 1001 Broadway, Nashville, Tennessee United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
History | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Closed | 1979 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Former services | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Nashville Union Station and Trainshed | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 36°09′26″N86°47′05″W / 36.1572°N 86.7848°W | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Architect | Richard Montfort | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
NRHP reference No. | 69000178 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Significant dates | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Added to NRHP | December 30, 1969 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Designated NHL | 1975 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Delisted NHL | July 31, 2003 |
Nashville's Union Station is a former railroad terminal designed by Richard Montfort, chief engineer of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N), and built between 1898 and 1900 to serve the passengers of the eight railroads that provided passenger service to Nashville, Tennessee, at the time, but principally the L&N. [1] [2] Built just west of the downtown area, it was spanned by a viaduct adjacent to the station and positioned to the east and above a natural railroad cut, through which most of the tracks in the area were routed. The station was also used by streetcars prior to their discontinuance in Nashville in 1941. [3] [4]
It ceased train operation in 1979, and lay abandoned until opening as a hotel in 1986. Union Station became a Marriott Autograph Collection Hotel in 2012 and completed a full renovation of all guest rooms and public spaces in 2016. [1] [5] [2] It became a member of Historic Hotels of America in 2015. [6]
Opened October 9, 1900, as a Louisville & Nashville Railroad station, Union Station had a long history before it shut down in October 1979. [1] [7] When a new post office was built in Nashville in 1935, it was located adjacent to Union Station. A connecting passageway between the two was used to transport mail to and from trains for more than three decades.
The station reached peak usage during World War II when it served as the shipping-out point for tens of thousands of U.S. troops and was the site of a USO canteen. The station's decline started in the 1960s, amid the larger nationwide decline in passenger rail service. By the end of the decade, the L&N was the only railroad using the station. Only six trains per day stopped there, down from 16 in the late 1940s.
The primary passenger trains through Nashville over the years included:
Operators | Named trains | Western or northern destination | Eastern or southern destination | Year discontinued |
---|---|---|---|---|
Amtrak | Floridian | Chicago | St. Petersburg, Florida Miami sections separating in Wildwood, Florida | 1979 |
Chicago and Eastern Illinois, Louisville & Nashville | Dixie Flagler | Chicago and alternate section originating in St. Louis Union Station | Miami via Atlanta | 1957 |
Chicago and Eastern Illinois, Louisville & Nashville | Dixie Flyer | Chicago and alternate section originating in St. Louis Union Station | Miami via Atlanta | 1965 |
Chicago and Eastern Illinois, Louisville & Nashville | Dixieland | Chicago and alternate section originating in St. Louis Union Station | Miami via Atlanta | 1957 |
Chicago and Eastern Illinois, Louisville & Nashville | Georgian | Chicago and alternate section originating in St. Louis Union Station | Atlanta | 1971 |
Louisville & Nashville, Pennsylvania Railroad Atlantic Coast Line Florida East Coast | Florida Arrow | Chicago | Miami, Florida Sarasota and St. Petersburg sections | 1949 |
Louisville & Nashville | Humming Bird | Cincinnati, Ohio via Louisville | New Orleans via Birmingham | 1969 |
Louisville & Nashville | Pan-American | Cincinnati, Ohio via Louisville | New Orleans via Birmingham | 1971 |
Louisville & Nashville | South Wind | Chicago | St. Petersburg and Miami | 1971 |
Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis | City of Memphis | Memphis | [terminus] | 1958 |
Southern Railway, Tennessee Central | Carolina Special | [terminus] | Goldsboro, North Carolina Charleston, South Carolina | ca. 1948 |
Amtrak took over intercity service on May 1, 1971. For much of 1971, Nashville was severed from the national rail network. On November 14, 1971, Amtrak began running a single route through Nashville, the Floridian , successor of the South Wind, with service once in each direction between Chicago and–via a split in Wildwood, Florida–St. Petersburg and Miami. However, the Floridian made its final run on October 9, 1979, after being plagued by rampant delays. The last train to call at Union Station was a southbound Floridian, ending over 120 years of intercity rail service in Nashville. Many of its open spaces were roped off, and its architectural features became largely a habitat for pigeons for several years.
After it closed, the station fell into the custody of the federal government's General Services Administration, which struggled for years to find a viable redevelopment plan as the station continued to decline. Nashville locals continuously rejected plans that did not include retaining the main terminal building.
The site remained vacant until 1986 when a group of investors worked together to turn it into a luxury hotel with 125 luxury rooms and 12 suites. [5] [7] The hotel plan was based on the use of "junk bond" financing, and the interest payments were so high the hotel required 90% occupancy at an average room rate of $135 per night to break even. This was not a supportable business model in the 1980s Nashville hotel market, and the project soon went bankrupt, calling the future of the station into question again. However, a new investor group bought the hotel in bankruptcy and was able to operate profitably without charging exorbitant room rates or requiring such a high occupancy rate due to the lower cost basis.
More problematic was the effort to find a modern use for the massive trainshed adjacent to the terminal building. Said to be the largest of its kind in the world at the time and an engineering masterpiece, the structure continued to deteriorate. Several suggested plans, including one to raise it up to street level (from the cut level) and turn it into a farmers' market, never came to fruition. A fire damaged the structure in 1996, and it was eventually demolished in late 2000 after several years of failing to come up with a viable preservation plan. [8]
Since the site's conversion to a hotel in 1986, Union Station has undergone several renovations. The first occurred in 2007 and cost $11 million. An additional $1.9 million of upgrades were made in 2012 when the hotel became a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel. [7] In 2014, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust bought Union Station Hotel for $52.3 million and hired Gobbell Hays Partners, Inc., to design renovations that ultimately cost $15.5 million. Southwest Value Partners now own and manage the Hotel. [9] [10]
Along with the adjoining trainshed, Union Station became a National Historic Landmark in 1976. However, its historical landmark status was withdrawn in 2003 due to the fire damage to the trainshed that occurred in 1996 and ultimately led to the demolition of that part of the property. [8] Union Station remains on the National Register of Historic Places (listed in 1969) [11] for its local relevance to the city of Nashville and the state of Tennessee.
The station is an example of late-Victorian Romanesque Revival architecture and has high towers and turrets that are reminiscent of a castle. [1] [6] The tower originally contained an early mechanical digital clock, but it was replaced by a traditional analog clock when replacement French silk drive belts became unavailable during World War I. The original bronze statue of the Roman god Mercury that sat on top of the tower was toppled in a storm in 1951 but was later replaced in the mid-1990s with a two-dimensional form painted in trompe-l'œil style to replicate the original. This second Mercury was destroyed in the 1998 downtown Nashville tornado but was also replaced.
The décor in the hotel includes features like three crystal chandeliers, Italian marble floors, wrought iron accents, oak-accented doors, and three limestone fireplaces, along with a 65-foot, barrel-vaulted, stained glass lobby ceiling. [2] [1] The walls are covered with art, including numerous bas-relief sculptures. The two sculptures known as "Miss Nashville" and "Miss Louisville" are said to be images of two of the builder's daughters. Other bas-reliefs depict various historical modes of transportation. [2] Some of the station's original tile remains in the hotel's bar and restaurant area. [12]
Dearborn Station was, beginning in the late 1800s, one of six intercity train stations serving downtown Chicago, Illinois. It remained in operation until May 1, 1971. Built in 1883, it is located at Dearborn and Polk Streets, to the south of the Loop, adjacent to Printers Row. The station was owned by the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad, which itself was owned by the companies operating over its line. The station building headhouse now houses office, retail, and entertainment spaces, and its trackage yard, behind the headhouse, was redeveloped into part of the Dearborn Park neighborhood.
Denver Union Station is the main railway station and central transportation hub in Denver, Colorado. It is located at 17th and Wynkoop Streets in the present-day LoDo district and includes the historic station house, a modern open-air train shed, a 22-gate underground bus station, and light rail station. A station was first opened on the site on June 1, 1881, but burned down in 1894. The current structure was erected in two stages, with an enlarged central portion completed in 1914.
The Chattanooga Choo-Choo in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is a former railroad station once owned and operated by the Southern Railway. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the station operated as a hotel from 1973 to 2023, and was a member of Historic Hotels of America, part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The Chattanooga Choo Choo is no longer a hotel. The two-floor hotel building, once called The MacArthur building, was renamed in 2023 to The Hotel Chalet by Trestle Studio, a Chicago based development group.
The Kentucky Cardinal was a nightly 312-mile (502 km) passenger train operated by Amtrak from 1999 to 2003 between Chicago, Illinois, and Louisville, Kentucky, via Indianapolis, Indiana. On the three days that the Cardinal ran, the Kentucky Cardinal operated as a section, splitting at Indianapolis. On the other four days, it ran on its own to Chicago.
The Floridian was a train operated by Amtrak from 1971 to 1979 that ran between Chicago and Florida, with two branches south of Jacksonville terminating at Miami and St. Petersburg. For its Nashville to Montgomery segment, its route followed that of several former Louisville & Nashville Railroad (L&N) passenger trains, including the Pan-American and the Humming Bird. Originating in Chicago, the train served Lafayette and Bloomington, Indiana; Louisville and Bowling Green, Kentucky; Nashville, Tennessee; Decatur, Birmingham, Montgomery and Dothan, Alabama; and Thomasville, Valdosta and Waycross, Georgia.
Richmond Main Street Station, officially the Main Street Station and Trainshed, is a historic railroad station and office building in Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1901, and is served by Amtrak. It is also an intermodal station with Richmond's city transit bus services, which are performed by Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC). The station is colloquially known by residents as The Clock Tower. It was listed to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970, and in 1976 was made a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Main Street Station serves as a secondary train station for Richmond providing limited Amtrak service directly to downtown Richmond. Several Amtrak trains serving the Richmond metropolitan area only stop at the area's primary rail station, Staples Mill Road which is located five miles to the north in Henrico County.
The Union Station of Louisville, Kentucky is a historic railroad station that serves as offices for the Transit Authority of River City (TARC), as it has since mid-April 1980 after receiving a year-long restoration costing approximately $2 million. It was one of at least five union stations in Kentucky, amongst others located in Lexington, Covington, Paducah and Owensboro. It was one of three stations serving Louisville, the others being Central Station and Southern Railway Station. It superseded previous, smaller, railroad depots located in Louisville, most notably one located at Tenth and Maple in 1868–1869, and another L&N station built in 1858. The station was formally opened on September 7, 1891, by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. There was a claim made at the time that it was the largest railroad station in the Southern United States, covering forty acres. The other major station in Louisville was Central Station, serving the Baltimore and Ohio, the Illinois Central and other railroads.
The Reading Terminal is a complex of buildings that includes the former Reading Company main station located in the Market East section of Center City in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It comprises the Reading Terminal Headhouse, Trainshed, and Market.
St. Louis Union Station is a National Historic Landmark and former train station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. At its 1894 opening, the station was the largest in the world that had tracks and passenger service areas all on one level. Traffic peaked at 100,000 people a day in the 1940s. The last Amtrak passenger train left the station in 1978.
Union Station is the inter-city railway station for Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It is a grand beaux-arts structure situated near The Forks in downtown Winnipeg, and was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1976. The station is also a Heritage Railway Station, so designated since 1989.
Memphis Union Station was a passenger terminal in Memphis, Tennessee. It served as a hub between railroads of the Southwest, the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, and railroads of the Southeast, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway and the Southern Railway. The terminal, completed in 1912, was built in the Beaux-Arts style and was located on Calhoun Street, between south Second Street and Rayburn Boulevard. It was demolished in 1969. This location in south Memphis was approximately two blocks east of the other major Memphis railroad terminal, Memphis Grand Central Station.
Memphis Central Station, referred to as Grand Central Station prior to 1944, is a passenger terminal in Memphis, Tennessee. Located along Main Street and G.E. Patterson Boulevard in Downtown Memphis, it currently a service stop for Amtrak's City of New Orleans route, arriving in late evening northbound and in the morning southbound. It is also served by the MATA Trolley system. The building was opened in 1914, and is located within the city's South Main Arts District. It is also an contributing property to the South Main Street Historic District of the National Register of Historic Places, as are the National Civil Rights Museum and other historic properties within the district boundaries.
The Indianapolis Union Station is an intercity train station in the Wholesale District of Indianapolis, Indiana. The terminal is served by Amtrak's Cardinal line, passing through Indianapolis three times weekly.
Birmingham station is a train station in Birmingham, Alabama. It is a service stop for Amtrak's Crescent, which provides daily service between New York City, Atlanta, and New Orleans. The current station is located on the site of another station originally built by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in 1960, although Amtrak did not use the building itself, which was torn down in the 2000s.
The Birmingham Terminal Station, completed in 1909, was the principal railway station for Birmingham, Alabama until the 1950s. It was demolished in 1969, and its loss still serves as a rallying image for local preservationists.
Montgomery Union Station and Trainshed is a historic former train station in Montgomery, Alabama. Built in 1898 by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, rail service to the station ended in 1979 and it has since been adapted for use by the Montgomery Area Visitor Center and commercial tenants. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and became a National Historic Landmark in 1976.
Central of Georgia Depot and Trainshed is a former passenger depot and trainshed constructed in 1860 by the Central of Georgia Railway (CofG) before the outbreak of the American Civil War. This pair of buildings was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976, a listing that was expanded in 1978 to the old Central of Georgia Railway Savannah Shops and Terminal Facilities.
The Historic Railpark and Train Museum, formerly the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Station in Bowling Green, Kentucky, is located in the historic railroad station. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1979. Opened in 1925, the standing depot is the third Louisville & Nashville Railroad depot that served Bowling Green.
Richard Montfort, was an Irish-American architect and engineer. He served as the first chief engineer of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad from 1887 to 1905, and in this capacity designed several of the L&N's most important structures, including Union Station in Nashville, Tennessee (1898–1900), and the L&N station in Knoxville (1904–05). He was one of the key persons to contribute to the L&N's growth over the last quarter of the nineteenth century and first quarter of the twentieth into one of the US's most robust corporations.
Cincinnati Union Terminal is an intercity train station and museum center in the Queensgate neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. It opened in 1933 as a union station to replace five train stations serving seven railroads in the city. Passenger service ceased in 1972, and the station concourse was demolished. From 1980 to 1985, the building housed a shopping mall. In 1991, the terminal saw the opening of the Cincinnati Museum Center and the return of Amtrak service.
Media related to Union Station (Nashville) at Wikimedia Commons