This structure is the ‘coolest building in Alabama’, according to a popular website
Alabama has some beautiful buildings with amazing architectural detail, including skyscrapers, cathedrals and depots in styles from gothic to modern.
Business Insider recently listed “The Coolest Building in Every U.S. State.” Which one would you choose for Alabama? The modern Government Plaza in Mobile? The Rosenbaum House, the only one in the state built by Frank Lloyd Wright? Or perhaps the State Capitol Building with its double spiral staircases?
All would be great choices, but Business Insider chose a historic beauty with red Spanish tiles and gargoyles to represent Alabama: the 1907 Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Terminal Station in Mobile.
Click through the gallery at the top of this story for more photos.
The building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, closed to train traffic in 1958 and was used for a time as offices for the railroad, according to the Library of Congress. The architect was P. Thornton Marye, who lived from 1872-1935.
The LOC entry said: “Fine example of neo-Spanish Baroque elements in commercial architecture… Hipped red-tile roof, raised central pavilion, tiled dome with lantern, continuous sixteen-bay arcade across facade with curvilinear parapet. Central rotunda and ticket area with marble wainscoting, marble stair with cast-iron balustrade to offices on upper floors. Modified for offices in 1959; domes sealed off in 1961.”
The railroad closed its offices and vacated the building in 1986, according to the History Museum of Mobile.
It was unoccupied until it was restored in 2001. The Lathan Co., a historic preservation company that worked on the structure, says, “the GM&O building is one of the South’s finest examples of turn-of-the-century architecture blending mission revival and Gothic elements with limestone gargoyles and terracotta masonry.”
The building, now a mixed-use facility, cost $575,000 to build in 1907 and $18 million to restore. It reopened in 2002.
In 2005, flooding from Hurricane Katrina did heavy damage to the restored building, but it has since been repaired.
The building is currently home to The Wave, Mobile’s mass transit system, and private offices.
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