The Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel (formerly known as Terminal Station) 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 is currently operated as a hotel, and is a member of Historic Hotels of America, part of the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 by ...

History

The original Chattanooga Union Station was built in 1858 (demolished in 1973). Plans for a new station originally called for a smaller facility to handle supplies and small packages. Instead, it was decided to build a grand station to handle passengers as well. Construction on this Terminal Station began in 1906; it was opened in 1909 at the total cost of $1.5 million. The Terminal Station was the first train station in the South to help open a pathway to connect the north from the south, connecting the city of Cincinnati to Chattanooga. Eventually, the Terminal Station was serving some fifty passenger trains per day plus some freight and package service. It even greeted presidents such as Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt.

Decline

American railroad passenger traffic declined after World War II; the Southern's express Detroit-Cincinnati-Florida ''Florida Sunbeam'' ended service in 1949. Traffic fell even more so in the 1950s and 1960s, due to competition from better cars and interstate systems, along with airplanes becoming a more popular way to travel and ship items. Packages and land shipping became easier to send and the train track locations became outdated. Terminal Station hosted its last passenger train to visit and serve the station, the Southern Railway's ''

Birmingham Special The ''Birmingham Special'' was a passenger train operated by the Southern Railway, Norfolk and Western Railway, and Pennsylvania Railroad in the southeastern United States. The train began service in 1909 and continued, with alterations, after A ...

'', from New York City to Birmingham, and this train left Terminal Station in 1970, which is the same year the doors of Terminal Station finally closed to the public. (Other noteworthy trains serving the station in its last years were the Southern Railway's ''

Pelican Pelicans (genus ''Pelecanus'') are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterized by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before s ...

'' ew York-New Orleans ''

Ponce de Leon Ponce may refer to: *Ponce (surname) * *Ponce, Puerto Rico, a city in Puerto Rico ** Ponce High School ** Ponce massacre, 1937 * USS ''Ponce'', several ships of the US Navy *Manuel Ponce, a Mexican composer active in the 20th century * British sla ...

'' incinnati-Jacksonville, FL '' Royal Palm'' incinnati-Miamiand '' Tennessean'' emphis-Washington, D.C. In the years before, as the passenger traffic declined, most of the platforms started to become storage before the station eventually got changed into a hotel and one by one, each track ultimately became obsolete.

Restoration

In April 1973, after nearly being demolished, Terminal Station was reopened by a group of business people seeking to trade on the " Chattanooga Choo Choo" song and its enduring popularity. They renamed Terminal Station "Chattanooga Choo Choo Hilton and Entertainment Complex". Investors poured more than $4 million into the renovation project. In 1989, another group of business people invested another $4 million to refurbish and renovate the hotel and to bring in and hire new management and staff. They renamed it The Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel. The complex was a convention center, hotel and resort with restaurants and shops. Hotel guests could stay in restored passenger railway cars. In 2017, the two back buildings of the hotel were renovate, turned into small apartments, and renamed Passenger Flats. The train tracks have mostly been removed to accommodate the growth of the city. The modern Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel is adorned with a bright neon miniature sign version of the trains that once visited. The hotel is surrounded and fenced in by rose gardens and includes an additional area for educational historic trolley rides as well as an outdoor ice skating rink during the cold winter months. There are several restaurants, a comedy club and the Gate 11 micro-distillery at Terminal Station, including a restaurant co-owned by actor Norman Reedus. It also once featured the "Dinner in the Diner" dining car restaurant, which is no longer operating. Some parts of the complex were connected by a heritage streetcar line, operated by a 1924-built ex-New Orleans

Perley Thomas Thomas Built Buses, Inc. (commonly known as Thomas) is an American bus manufacturer. Best known for its production of yellow school buses, Thomas produces other bus designs for a variety of usages. Currently, its production is concentrated on sc ...

trolley car A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

; this has been discontinued. In 2022, the complex's owners launched a second renovation, which started with the demolition of one of the passenger cars and the removal of others. Officials said that "eight historic train cars will be relocated adjacent to the hotel and nine will be relocated among the Gardens", while six will be donated to the

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum is a railroad museum and heritage railroad in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum was founded as a chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in 1960 by Paul H. Merriman ...

. The renovation was slated for completion in mid-2023, when the hotel is to reopen with "127 rooms, including 25 Pullman train car rooms".

Architecture and pop culture

The Beaux-Arts-style station designed by Donn Barber was one of the grandest buildings in Chattanooga, featuring an arched main entrance. The building also has an high ceiling dome with a skylight in the center section. The station included a main waiting room, bathrooms, ticket offices, and other services ready to help potential passengers. The original Terminal Station was merely one story in height, so the aforementioned dome and skylight made this area look gargantuan in juxtaposition to other similar buildings, while the arched main entrance was said to be the "largest arch in the world." Lighting was provided by large brass

chandelier A chandelier (; also known as girandole, candelabra lamp, or least commonly suspended lights) is a branched ornamental light fixture designed to be mounted on ceilings or walls. Chandeliers are often ornate, and normally use incandescent li ...

s. Terminal Station had fourteen train tracks, that could serve seven different passenger platforms. The then president of the Southern Railway System, William Finley, wanted the architecture to follow the example of and imitate the looks of the National Park Bank of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, and the high dome-like skylight was the main emulation of the National Park Bank. The 1941

Glenn Miller Alton Glen Miller (March 1, 1904 – December 15, 1944) was an American big band founder, owner, conductor, composer, arranger, trombone player and recording artist before and during World War II, when he was an officer in the United States Arm ...

song " Chattanooga Choo Choo" told the story of a train trip from Track 29 at Pennsylvania Station in New York City through

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was d ...

, North and South Carolina, and finishing the trip, or terminating at Terminal Station. (However, no such train went from New York, through the Carolinas to Chattanooga.)

References

External links