Choo Choo turns 100

The Chattanooga Choo Choo capped off a yearlong celebration Tuesday with the centennial anniversary of the first train arriving to Terminal Station.

The facility’s future begins with a new partner that General Manager Jim Bambrey called “exciting.”

The Choo Choo recently dropped its partnership with Holiday Inn and now operates under Historic Hotels of America and Sterling Hotels, brands operated by Preferred Hotel Group.

“We feel very good about where we have been and where we are going,” Mr. Bambrey said.

Many of the officials at Tuesday’s centennial celebration commented that the city and the Chattanooga Choo Choo are so well known because of the song written by Harry and Mack Warren and made famous by Glenn Miller in 1941.

Micarl Hill, regional director with the Preferred Hotel Group, said he told his wife he was going to Chattanooga and she immediately began singing the song.

“This is an honor, not only to have a new hotel with our organization but a hotel that is such a brand,” Mr. Hill said.

Ofelia Sobalvarro and her two children spent the night Monday at the Choo Choo on the way back to their home in Chicago.

She said it was a lot of fun sleeping in one of the train cars knowing the station’s 100-year history.

“It’s very exciting,” she said. “It’s fun that it coincides with the centennial.”

Congressman and gubernatorial hopeful Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., was at the celebration Tuesday morning, but he was on his way back to Washington where he would honor the Choo Choo with a resolution on the House floor.

“This is a landmark. This is an icon,” Mr. Wamp said. “This is the symbol of Chattanooga.”

The last train pulled away from the station in 1970, but the building was renovated and turned into a hotel that opened three years later. The renovation helped fuel the revitalization of the Southside.

The hotel was purchased by a group of about 30 investors, Choo Choo Partners, on Jan. 13, 1989.

Jon Kinsey, former Chattanooga mayor and one of the hotel’s investors, said it was Friday the 13th, but he called it a “lucky day.”

He praised the facility’s workers and said the 24-acre campus has been restored and is in terrific condition.

“The property has never been in better shape,” he said. “We have 300 employees and they are what really make this place hum.”

Also on hand for the event were Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey, who left from the station headed to Washington, D.C., on his Tyner High School senior trip.

“It is wonderful that this grand facility is still in use,” Mr. Ramsey said.

Bob Doak, president and chief executive of the Chattanooga Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said that a group of dignitaries stood at the station Dec. 1, 1909, making similar speeches as they did on Tuesday.

“It stands for something beyond itself,” he said. “It conjures images of war, victory and joyful reunions with that someone special at the station.”