Macon Terminal Station: Its Predecessors and Its Railroads (Images of Rail)

Macon is certainly not the largest railroad hub in the country--not even in Georgia. Yet in the early 1900s, with nearly 100 daily passenger trains, it had nothing about which to be ashamed. In those years, the nation's railroads dominated and, as was befitting, they flaunted their grandeur by building lavish passenger stations. In the South, virtually all of Macon's counterparts had been blessed with new eye-inviting stations. Macon, however, was still being served by what the local media described as a "ramshackle structure" (the 1855 Union Depot) and a "little dingy smoky structure" (the equally embarrassing Southern Railway depot). This all changed on December 1, 1916, when Macon Terminal Station's doors were thrown open to an eagerly awaiting populace. This book traces the events that began some 78 years before, in 1838, with the entry of Macon's first railroad line and led to the creation of Macon's downtown treasure.

David H. Steinberg, an ardent railroad enthusiast and historian, has written two books for Arcadia Publishing, Chattanooga's Transportation Heritage and When Atlanta Took the Train. In addition, he assisted Justin W. Strickland with compiling his Chattanooga's Terminal Station book and Ralcon Wagner with his Nashville's Streetcars and Interurban Railways.