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. 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 has greeted United States presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt. Decline Chattanooga was no exception to the general decline in American railroad passenger traffic after World War II. In 1949, the Southern canceled its Florida Sunbeam, an express train that connected Chattanooga to Detroit, Cincinnati, and Jacksonville, Florida. Traffic continued to decline amid competition from automobiles and airplanes in the 1950s and 1960s. One by one, the Southern cancelled its trains, which included the Pelican, connecting New York and New Orleans; Ponce de Leon, Cincinnati-Jacksonville; Royal Palm, Cincinnati-Miami; and Tennessean, Memphis-Washington, D.C. As passenger traffic declined, the railroad began using the station's platforms for storage. In 1970, Southern cancelled its last passenger train to Chattanooga—the Birmingham Special, from New York City to Birmingham—and closed Terminal Station. 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.