Union Station is Tacoma's proud monument to its golden age of railroads, when the "City of Destiny" was the western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway. Selected over Seattle and Olympia in 1873, Tacoma became the key shipping hub when Northern Pacific's route was completed in 1883 and "rail met sail" at the edge of Commencement Bay's deep water port. The railroad shipping depot was moved to the site of Union Station in 1892, but it wasn't until 1906 that a passenger station was planned. The project became a grand tribute to the prosperity brought to the region by the railroad. Designed by Reed & Stem, the architects who created New York's Grand Central Station, Union Station opened it's doors on May 7, 1911. It was proclaimed the grandest building north of San Francisco, its massive Romanesque revival architecture topped by a magnificent copper dome. Total cost of the structure was nearly $500,000. Union Station's architectural style is typical of many railroad depots constructed in the early 1900's. It drew on monumental-type design influenced by the Pantheon in Rome and 16th Century Italian baroque achitecture. A key characteristic is the giant barrel roofs extending in several directions from a central massive dome. In Union Station's design, the dome rises 60 feet from the rotunda floor to the interior ceiling, except for the central skylight. On the exterior, the dome is 98 feet high and its sides are covered with magnificent copper. The central rotunda is flanked by two wing. The giant building is supported on a timber piling foundation with reinforced concrete structural framing except for the dome, which is strustural steel framing. This grand ediface was Tacoma's pride for many years, but as the importance of the railroads waned, so did its maintenance. Union Station was finally vacated in 1983 when Amtrak moved its operation east of downtown; it then fell into complete disrepair. In the late 1980's, a community group, Save Our Station, was formed to do just that. It placed Union Station on the Tacoma, Washington State, and National, Register of Historic Places and investigated new uses for the landmark. A key point in the restoration negotiations was that the rotunda would remain a public space with public uses. In 1988 renovations on the station's exterior began, followed by interior refurbishing in 1990. All was restored to its original splendor, including the rotunda clock which has told the time since the first train arrived in 1911. A total of $57 million was spent on the renovation. Union Station reopened on May 15, 1992 as a Federal Courthouse (occupying the wings of the rotunda and a new addition) and a public display area in the rotunda. It currently houses the largest single exhibit of sculptured glass art by Dale Chihuly, Tacoma's internationally-acclaimed native son. The exhibit was coordinated by the Tacoma Art Museum and displays 27 Monarch forms of Chihuly glass sculpture against an original 22 by 40-foot window composed of 164 panes of 1911 glass. Under the dome's skylight hangs a striking, one-ton, cobalt blue "chandelier," composed of 2,500 individually blown glass shells. The rotunda is open to the public Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Union Station is once again Tacoma's proud symbol, this time of downtown's current revitalization as well as the city's past heritage.
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