St. Louis Union Station
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| St. Louis Union Station | |
|---|---|
| (U.S. National Historic Landmark) | |
 |
|
| Location: | St. Louis, Missouri United States |
| Built/Founded: | 1892-94 |
| Architect: | Theodore Link |
| Architectural style(s): | Victorian Romanesque |
| Added to NRHP: | December 30, 1970 |
| NRHP Reference#: | 70000888 |
St. Louis Union Station, a National Historic Landmark, is a former passenger train terminal in St. Louis, Missouri. Once the world's largest and busiest train station, it was converted in the early 1980s into a luxury hotel, shopping center, and entertainment complex. Today, it is one of the city's major tourist attractions.
The station opened on September 1, 1894, and was owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. Designed by Theodore Link, it included three main areas: the Headhouse, the Midway and the 11.5-acre Train Shed. The headhouse originally housed a hotel, a restaurant, passenger waiting rooms and railroad ticketing offices. It featured a gold-leafed Grand Hall, Romanesque arches, a 65-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows. The clock tower is 280 feet high.
Union Station's headhouse and midway are constructed of Indiana limestone and initially included 32 tracks under its vast trainshed terminating in the stub-end terminal.
At its height, the station combined the St. Louis passenger services of 22 railroads. At its opening, it was the world's largest and busiest railroad station and its trainshed was the largest roof span in the world. In 1903, the station was expanded to accommodate visitors to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
In the 1940s, it handled 100,000 passengers a day. The famous photograph of Harry S. Truman holding aloft the erroneous Chicago Tribune headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman," was shot at the station as Truman headed back to Washington, DC from Independence, Missouri after the 1948 Presidential election.
As railroad passenger services declined in the 1950s and 1960s, the massive station became obsolete and too expensive to maintain for its original purpose. With the takeover of national rail passenger service by Amtrak in 1971, passenger train service to St. Louis was reduced to only three trains a day. In 1978, the last train left St. Louis Union Station. Amtrak trains began using a small building two blocks east of Union Station , dubbed "Amshak" by rail enthusiasts. The "temporary" structure is to be replaced by a new intermodal facility, now under construction.
In August 1985, after a $150 million renovation, Union Station was reopened with a 539-room hotel, shopping mall, restaurants and food court. The hotel is housed in the headhouse and part of the train shed, which also houses a lake and shopping, entertainment and dining establishments. Omni, the original hotel operator, has since been replaced by the Hyatt Regency Hotel chain.
MetroLink, the St. Louis light rail mass transit system, serves Union Station from its station next to the trainshed.
Contents |
[edit] Filming
In 1981, the disused Grand Hall was used in John Carpenter's movie Escape from New York, doubling for Madison Square Gardens during the film's gladiatorial fight.[citation needed]
[edit] Photo gallery
 Union Station about 1909. |
 Grand Hall, from a postcard mailed in 1909. |
 Grand Hall in 2007. |
 The station now serves as a hotel and shopping complex. |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Montesi, Albert and Richard Deposki (2002). St. Louis Union Station. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 0738519839.
- National Register of Historic Places: Inventory - Nomination Form. Missouri Department of Natural Resources. Retrieved on 2008-05-30.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Old Courthouse |
Tallest Building in St. Louis 1894—1914 230 feet |
Succeeded by Railway Exchange Building (St. Louis) |
| Preceded by Old Courthouse |
Missouri's Tallest Building 1894—1906 230 feet |
Succeeded by Commerce Trust Building |
|
||||||||||
