If you were venturing by train south from Williamsburg to our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., in the early 20th century, you would have arrived at Union Station on the northeast side of the city.
The station was specifically authorized by Congress in 1903 and built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It was the work of Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham, a member of the U.S. Senate Park Commission at the time and designed primarily by William Pierce Anderson of the D.H. Burnham and Company architectural firm. It was built of white granite and measured 760 feet in length and 343 feet in width and is oriented facing the Capitol Building. The station itself incorporated a whole range of architectural styles from the classical, with arches and large vaulted spaces, to the Beaux-Arts with numerous allegorical sculptures in building. The station opened on October 27, 1907, when the first B & O train, the Pittsburgh Express, arrived at 6:50 a.m. and it was completed in April 1908.
While in the imposing single-roof Passenger Concourse or under the colossal vaulted ceiling of the Waiting Room in the station you, could eat in a variety of restaurants or get your hair cut at any number of barber shops. There was also a mortuary on the premises.
The station has had a history of ups (its heyday for passenger traffic was during WWII) and downs but was restored in 1988 and further redevelopment is guided by its first Historic Preservation Plan.
One unidentified Williamsburg resident was so impressed with the glory of the railway station that they purchased and saved these 1908 postcards of the newly opened building, which have turned up more than 100 years later. Daria D’Arienzo, Meekins Archivist. #throwbackthursday; #tbt
Posted to Facebook 2/24/2022
