Local history: The Terminal Hotel, the Choo Choo and The Southside
Chattanooga in its early days was an important railroad town and had many buildings connected to the rails. One prominent one is the narrow, three-story triangular structure at 1464 Market St., the Terminal Hotel, which opened about the same time, around 1909, as the Terminal Station.
As railroad traffic grew, Southern Railway officials decided in the early 1900s to erect a “grand station” on the site of the former Stanton House, a luxurious hotel built in 1871. Designed by a New York architect, the Terminal Station’s exterior design won a prestigious award from the Beaux Arts Institute in Paris. The