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Chattanooga
Choo-Choo by James McLain
Chattanooga was first
designated as the northern terminal for all trains that were leaving the Atlanta
railway. The first train to make its journey from Atlanta to Chattanooga was
owned by the Western and Atlantic Railroad company and left Atlanta on December
1, 1849. However, at this point there was not a passage way from Tunnel Hill,
Georgia to Chattanooga, so the passengers and the materials aboard the train,
stopped there. They were then put into wagons and brought the rest of the way up
to Chattanooga about 25 miles, where they continued the remainder of their trip.
In 1850 a tunnel was built thru Tunnel Hill to make it passable for trains to
make it thru to Chattanooga. In 1852, construction of the union station of
Chattanooga began. This building was located at the corner of 9th and
Market St.
The Nashville and Chattanooga
railways were established to bring citizens southward from Nashville. However,
much like the trip from Atlanta, mountains stood as a barrier. This time it was
the Cumberland Mountains. So as a detour, passengers were first taken to
Bridgeport, Alabama and then brought the rest of the way by ferry boat. By 1861
and the beginning of the civil war, Chattanooga was a highly populated area when
it came to railway travel. So active was it, that during the civil war, the
union station was often used as a temporary hospital for wounded soldiers.
The term
“Chattanooga choo choo” was actually coined to the first train to link travel
from north to south. This train arrived in March of 1880 from Cincinnati
Southern Railways. This popularity increase, caused the CSR to build a rail-line
parallel to the already existing one, therefore calling for a full brick depot
be built in 1881. By 1888 their were eight passenger lines that ran out of
Chattanooga. Because of the increase in size, they built the Central Station at
the corners of Market and ML King. This opened in September of 1888. At which
point, 6 out of the eight railway companies joined together to form one train
line known as Southern Railway.
In 1904 Southern
Railway had concluded it was time for a newer bigger station. A nearby hotel the
Stanton Hotel had been built shortly after the civil war by John Stanton of
Boston for 100,000 dollars. This property has become barren and unused, so the
Southern Railways decided to purchase it to expand on their new Terminal
Station. The designer of the new station was a New Yorker, Don Barber. His
design was quite elaborate and even included 85 foot high ceilings! The $1.5
million dollar train station opened December 1, 1909 and now operated 14 tracks.
Needless to say the much smaller central station, closed that same year.
The Chattanooga
Choo Choo was not a known phrase until actually 60 years after it had first been
coined. In 1941 Glen Miller recorded a song titled Chattanooga Choo Choo. This
was an instant hit and helped rebirth the popularity of train travel in the
south by staying at the top of the charts for 17 weeks. This kept the train
station alive and going until 1970’s when train usage declined extremely.
August 11, 1970
the last train from Chattanooga left headed for Washington DC. The train station
then closed and the windows were boarded up. They wanted to make sure the
terminal station would not be used again. However the last train to actually
stop at the station even though, it was not in use was actually the Georgian,
which was making a trip through to Atlanta May1, 1971.
The shut down did
not last for long. In 1972 a group of local investors decided the old train
terminal would make for great tourism in the Chattanooga area. So with a 10
million dollar purchase from Southern Railways, the group purchased and began to
convert it into a family tourist attraction. In March of 1973 it was added to
the National Registry of Historic Places. They got the idea to turn the old
train cars into hotel rooms. So in May of 1973, the first 48 train cars became
the first Motor Inn which included 103 rooms in the motor inn and 96 in the
train cars. In 1978 business was doing so well they decided to add an additional
building of hotel rooms and in 1981 a third to make a total rooms of 361. In
1989 the hotel was purchased by Holiday Inn along with 4 million dollars in
improvements. The hotel, still operates in full swing today, with the original
trolley car still there and running.
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