Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Terminal Station
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| Inter-city rail | |
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| Location | 1400 Market St., Chattanooga, Tennessee |
| Line(s) | CS, CNO&TP, SOU, AGS |
| History | |
| Opened | 1909 |
| Closed | 1970 |
| Rebuilt | 1973, 1989 |
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Terminal Station
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| Location | 1400 Market St., Chattanooga, Tennessee |
| Built | 1908 |
| Architect | Donn Barber |
| Architectural style | Beaux-Arts |
| NRHP reference No. | 73001778 |
| Added to NRHP | February 20, 1973 |
The Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel is a famous hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It used to be a big train station called Terminal Station. The Southern Railway owned and ran it for many years. Today, it's a special hotel listed on the National Register of Historic Places, which means it's an important historical site. It's also part of Historic Hotels of America, a group that helps protect old and important hotels.
Contents
The Story of Terminal Station
The first train station in Chattanooga was built in 1858. But leaders decided they needed a much grander station for passengers. So, they started building the new Terminal Station in 1906. It opened in 1909 and cost about $1.5 million, which was a lot of money back then!
Terminal Station was very important because it was the first train station in the Southern United States to connect the North and the South. It linked the city of Cincinnati to Chattanooga. At its busiest, the station served about 50 passenger trains every day. Even presidents like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt visited this station.
Why Trains Became Less Popular
After World War II, fewer people traveled by train. Cars became better, and new highways like the interstate system made driving easier. Airplanes also became a popular way to travel and ship things. Because of these changes, train travel slowly declined.
Terminal Station saw its last passenger train, the Birmingham Special, leave in 1970. This train traveled from New York City to Birmingham. After this, the station closed its doors to the public. Over time, many of the train platforms became storage areas as fewer trains used them.
Bringing the Station Back to Life
In April 1973, the old Terminal Station was almost torn down. But a group of business people had a great idea! They wanted to save the station and turn it into a hotel. They were inspired by the popular "Chattanooga Choo Choo" song. They spent over $4 million to fix up the station and renamed it the "Chattanooga Choo Choo Hilton and Entertainment Complex."
Later, in 1989, another group of investors put in another $4 million to make the hotel even better. They hired new staff and renamed it The Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel.
Today, the hotel complex covers about 24 acres. It's a big place with a convention center, a hotel, restaurants, and shops. A really cool part is that hotel guests can even stay inside restored old passenger railway cars!
Most of the original train tracks have been removed to make space for the growing city. The modern Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel has a bright neon sign that looks like the trains that once visited. The hotel is surrounded by beautiful rose gardens and even has an area for historic trolley rides and an ice skating rink.
Building Design and Pop Culture
The Terminal Station was designed by an architect named Donn Barber. It was built in the Beaux-Arts style, which is a grand and fancy way of designing buildings. It was one of the most impressive buildings in Chattanooga.
The station had a huge arched main entrance. Inside, the main waiting room had an 82-foot-high ceiling with a skylight in the middle. This made the area feel enormous! The station also had bathrooms, ticket offices, and other services for travelers. Large brass chandeliers provided light. The station had 14 train tracks that could serve seven different platforms. The president of the Southern Railway System at the time, William Finley, wanted the station to look like the National Park Bank in New York City. The high dome-like skylight was a key feature copied from that bank.
The famous 1941 Glenn Miller song "Chattanooga Choo Choo" tells the story of a train trip. The song describes a journey starting from Track 29 at Pennsylvania Station in New York City, going through places like Baltimore, North and South Carolina, and ending at Terminal Station in Chattanooga. Even though no real train route went exactly like that, the song made the Chattanooga Choo Choo famous around the world!
