Day
1 - Monday, August 20, 2007
Hotel Sign on Top of Terminal
Well,
let me introduce myself, I'm the Director of Internet Services
for the NRHS (AKA webmaster for NRHS.com). My job this week
is to take you inside our annual convention so you can get
an idea of what an NRHS convention is like. Today is the first
day of the convention. Sometimes they are pretty dull, but
today actually turned out to be pretty fun. After all you
never really know what is gonna happen at an NRHS Convention.
Hotel Complex
For starters, the convention headquarters hotel
is awesome place for railroad buffs, even if it weren't a
convention here. The Holiday-Inn Chattanooga Choo Choo is
in fact a former railway Terminal built by the Southern Railway.
It opened in 1909 and was in service until 1970. The headhouse
serves as the main hotel area, restaurants, shops, etc. There
are three modern separate hotel buildings built out in the
old yard. But its much more than just a hotel at a train station.
You can sleep in an old sleeping car, eat in an old dining
car, check out a model train display, take a trolley ride,
buy railroad theme gifts and other cool stuff, walk down the
old station platforms, take your photo next to a steam engine,
all in a beautifully restored train motif that brings you
back to the golden age of railway travel. The whole place
is a "railway theme park." And it is magnificent.
As they say here, it's a train, a song, and a hotel. Station
web site is http://www.choochoo.com.
A little on the history below, courtesy of the hotel's web
site (more info is available there):
In 1905, the Southern Railway acquired the
once luxurious Stanton House and hotel property where the
station stands for $71,500. The railway leveled the neglected
Stanton House in 1906 to make way for a new passenger station.
The Terminal Station was erected in 1908, with its centerpiece
- a magnificent dome - that rose majestically over the concourse.
Built of steel and concrete and buttressed by huge brick
arches, the dome rested on four steel supports 75 feet apart.
Suspended from the ceiling were four brass chandeliers,
each with 40 lights circling an 18-inch opal globe. From
an architectural standpoint, this dome over the entire 68
x 82 foot general waiting room was the most attractive design
feature of its time.
It was on the underside of this dome, the
part in view above the waiting room, that the only attempt
to decorate in colors was made -- artistic plaster embellishments
of heraldic emblems, which are now fully restored. The dome
was truly lavish and beautiful in its different prismatic
colors, especially when lighted at night. An interesting
bit of history surrounds the architectural drawings and
specifications chosen for Terminal Station. In the year
1900, the greatest school of art, Beaux Arts Institute,
was located in Paris, France. The students themselves offered
a prize that year...open to all individuals in the architectural
department...for the best plans which could be drawn up
for a railroad station suitable for the needs of a large
city. A flood of plans were drawn up by interested students;
and soon railroad stations of every shape and size, big,
little, round and square, were presented. The winner was
an American, Don Barber, of New York City.
In 1904, when the president of the Southern
Railway System decided to build a new passenger terminal
in Chattanooga, one architect who offered an entry was none
other than this same Mr. Barber. When the Southern Railway
president saw Mr. Barber's design, he was much impressed
and summoned the gentleman to his office. He said he felt
the exterior plans were perfect but asked Barber if he could
possibly alter the interior design to conform with the interior
of the then fashionable National Park Bank of New York City.
This young man agreed; and Chattanooga's Terminal Station
became a combination of the plans which won Barber the first
prize at the Paris Beaux Arts Institute and of the famous
New York bank, which had been admired by visitors from all
over the world.
On the bitterly cold winter morning of December
1, 1909, a crowd of several hundred gathered in the 1400
block of Market Street for the dedication of Chattanooga's
"Gateway" - Terminal Station, and the first train pulled
into the station that day. The depot grew to serve nearly
50 passenger trains a day. Over the years, the bustling
terminal greeted Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt,
and Franklin Roosevelt. Passenger train traffic slowed to
a near halt in the 1960's with the dominance of auto and
air travel. Railway activity was replaced by these faster
modes of transportation.
Almost 61 years after the opening, the grand
old building was closed to the public when the last train
stopped on August 11, 1970. Doors and windows were boarded
up, and Southern Railway vacated the entire building.
You could spend hours just wandering around this
hotel and reveling in the genre. Below are some pictures from
the NRHS Webmaster's adventures this afternoon.
