From peril to revival, Terminal Station celebrates 100th anniversary

The Terminal Station was a round-the-clock operation, bustling with energy, when a Macon teenager began delivering messages in the 1930s.

Bill Mallard, now a vibrant 93-year-old, fondly recalls the scenes around the Macon landmark, where he often stopped while working as a messenger in 1939. The 16-year-old Lanier High School student would later follow in his father’s footsteps and embark on a career in the railroad industry. The Terminal Station was the backdrop for many of his memories until the 1960s.

In its heyday, the station had a barbershop, railway company offices and a cafeteria with U-shaped counters and stools where people could pick up a quick meal. There also was a tunnel underneath the tracks that people walked through before climbing large staircases to the train’s platform.

Mallard would eventually spend 45 years working for Central of Georgia Railway (and its incarnations) before retiring as head of labor relations for Norfolk Southern Corp. But as a teenager, Mallard remembers the Terminal Station as a “beehive” of activity.

“When I was 16, I ran messages from the freight yard to the Terminal Station,” he said. “It was all night. It was 24 hours a day trains coming and going.”

The arrival of the first train at Terminal Station had come about two decades earlier — Dec. 1, 1916 — before Mallard began working at the freight yard. And for several decades the building, at the foot of Cherry Street, was a lifeline for many Middle Georgians.

The Terminal Station’s centennial has been marked with several events this year, including teaming up with another Macon icon — Nu-Way Weiners. And last year, trips on a replica Nancy Hanks passenger train sold out.

“At one time during its heyday in the 1940s, there were probably 100 trains a day” arriving and departing from the station, said Ken Preston, director of the Central of Georgia Railway Historical Society.

The Central of Georgia was the main railway company at the Cherry Street station, but other companies operated out of the downtown Macon building. For years, the Terminal Station was the point of arrival and departure for everyone, from troops to visiting family members.

As a child, Macon-Bibb County Mayor Robert Reichert’s grandmother would travel by train from Miami to Macon to visit family.

“We always thought it was so interesting that when you put grandmother back on the train, the train would back out of the station instead of pulling forward,” he said.

The signature passenger train that came through the Terminal Station was the Nancy Hanks — a Central of Georgia engine. First a steam engine and later powered by diesel, the train offered rides from Savannah to Macon to Atlanta, with a few stops in between.

For a time, before radio communications were used on trains, the number of whistles signaled when a train was arriving or departing from a station, Preston noted.

“When ready to depart forward it was two whistles. When it stopped, it was one long whistle,” he said. “When he went backward, it was three toots of the whistle. That was universal throughout the country.”

Eventually, though, the Terminal Station faced troubles as the popularity of passenger rail declined across the U.S. Its fate was exacerbated when two other modes of transportation came to the forefront.

“In the ‘30s and ‘40s, the way to travel was going by train,” Preston said. “Airlines and the interstate system helped end passenger train service.”

NO OPENING CEREMONY

The station — designed by Alfred Fellheimer, the same architect behind New York’s Grand Central Terminal — featured an arching entrance and sculpted eagles perched atop columns.

Construction of the building, which took about a year and cost more than a million dollars, was completed in October 1916, but it wasn’t until Dec. 1 that the first trains arrived for passengers.

There was no ceremony to mark the opening, according to a front-page account in The Macon Daily Telegraph. The first train, the Central of Georgia No. 8 from Albany to Macon, arrived “exactly on time” at 9:35 a.m.

Thousands of people turned out during the day to inspect the new building, which featured marble floors and pink Tennessee marble walls in some areas.

As the popularity of passenger rail declined, the once venerable Terminal Station became neglected in the late 1970s, when the final railway company moved out.

“When their operation closed down it was in terrible condition at the time and was barely usable in major parts of the building,” said Hal Baskin, of the downtown booster agency Newtown Macon.

In the early 1980s, Georgia Power Co. bought the building and performed renovations while occupying the station for nearly two decades. In 2002, during Mayor C. Jack Ellis’ administration, the city acquired the station as part of a $6.7 million federal grant that would be used for major renovations and building a bus transfer station next to the station.

One of the early steps in reviving the property was relocating the Department of Driver Services inside the Terminal Station’s east wing.

In 2008, the city of Macon contracted with NewTown Macon to manage the renovations and daily operations of the city-owned facility. The city would perform facility upgrades and replace a wooden shelter with the new transfer station.

The 80,000-plus-square-foot building is now restored and in some areas more majestic than when it originally opened, although some sections remain closed off.

The Macon-Bibb County Transit Authority continues to lease out space in the building, with several government departments among those now renting offices. The station also has become a popular event venue, hosting wedding receptions, parties and other gatherings.

“It’s all of a sudden starting to come back alive again,” said Craig Ross, chairman of the Transit Authority board.

After times of dire straits, the old station is now something people can be proud of again, Transit Authority CEO Rick Jones said.

“Now we can proudly say it is more than sustaining itself,” he said. “It is now clearing enough in revenue to pay its way and give us more money to put back into it for small rehab projects.”

While the Terminal Station has been revived, Reichert envisions a return to former glory, albeit on a smaller scale.

He sees the station as a perfect place for a fine dining restaurant and continues advocating for the return of passenger rail service as he heads into his final term as mayor.

Studies have found that intercity passenger rail between Macon and Atlanta could be feasible, and the Federal Railroad Administration has recommended further exploration into the route.

Reichert has visited Gov. Nathan Deal about getting a project sponsor that would help spur those efforts that could run on existing lines. Deal has been cautious about the financial sustainability of passenger rail, saying that a federal subsidy would be needed.

“(The sponsor) would be the lead agency in gathering additional information and putting together a proposal if it was deemed to be economically feasible and functionally attractive,” Reichert said.

When the station opened 100 years ago, it was an example of various railroads working together to meet the community’s transportation needs. Even today, it remains an important piece in the downtown puzzle, Baskin said.

“The architectural size and beauty of the crown jewel of downtown Macon serves to anchor a vibrant arts and entertainment district reaching up Cherry Street from the Terminal to the City Auditorium,” he said.

This story was originally published November 25, 2016 at 1:05 PM with the headline "From peril to revival, Terminal Station celebrates 100th anniversary."