Union Station (Dallas)

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Passengers at Union Station

Union Station is a DART light rail, Trinity Railway Express commuter rail and Amtrak intercity rail station located in the Reunion district of downtown Dallas, Texas (USA) on Houston Street, between Wood and Young Streets. Amtrak's Texas Eagle also serves the station.

The light rail station opened on June 14, 1996 and is a station on the Red and Blue lines as well as the TRE commuter line (Green Line), serving Union Station, the Greyhound bus terminal, the George Allen Courts Building, Dealey Plaza, the Hyatt Regency at Reunion, Reunion Tower and Reunion Arena.

[edit] History

Constructed in 1916 as Dallas Union Terminal, the structure now known as Union Station was built to consolidate five rail stations scattered around Dallas into one, making Dallas a major transportation center in the Southwestern United States. At the peak of its usage, as many as 80 trains stopped each day at the station.^[1]

In 1954, the building served as a temporary library while the Dallas Public Library system built a new central library to replace the original Carnegie Library.^[2]

In 1934, as part of the federally-sponsored Public Works of Art Project, Jerry Bywaters and Alexander Hogue were granted the first commission in Texas to created a series of ten murals depicting events in Dallas history. They painted them on the walls of the second-floor lobby at the old Dallas City Hall Building, located on Harwood between Main and Commerce. In 1954, the murals were destroyed when City Hall relocated. When the station was renovated to accommodate light rail usage, the murals were partially recreated by Phillip Lamb along the train platforms at Union Station.^[1]