What is this photograph?

Atlanta’s Terminal Station

The Terminal Station stood from 1905 until 1971.  The station stood on the site now occupied by Atlanta’s United States Courthouse.  The railroad demolished the classic train depot ion July 1971, several months after the death of Richard B. Russell.  The federal government later bought the land.  Following congressional hearings in 1975, hearings which included Andrew Young, Atlanta’s then-U.S. Representative from Georgia’s Fifth District, Congress authorized funding for a new United States Courthouse on the former site of Terminal Station.  The Congress chose to name the building after Richard B. Russell, Jr.  The building opened for business in 1980 and remains the federal courthouse to this day.  Our own Magistrate Judge Alan J. Baverman, an avid local historian, has made himself into an expert on the Terminal Station.  Next time you see him, ask him about the building’s history.

A photographer shot this image of the station in the 1950’s, as he stood near the corner of Spring Street and Hunter Street (the iconic downtown avenue re-named in 1976 for Martin Luther King, Jr.).  You will find a wonderful collection of old photographs of Terminal Station in this portfolio published in the AJC.