Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Passenger Terminal

The Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Passenger Terminal is a historic train station in Mobile, Alabama, United States. Architect P. Thornton Marye designed the Mission Revival style terminal for the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. It was completed in 1907 at a total cost of $575,000. The Mobile and Ohio merged with the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad in 1940 to form the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Passenger service into the station was discontinued by the late 1950s after which all passenger trains in Mobile called at a nearby facility, Mobile station. The building continued to serve as railroad offices. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 15, 1975. It had suffered neglect, extensive interior alteration, and partial removal of the train shed by this time. The Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad vacated the old terminal building in 1986 and for fifteen years it suffered from demolition-by-neglect. The Alabama Historical Commission and the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation named it as one of their "Places in Peril" in 1996. In 2001 the City of Mobile and a private company invested more than $18 million to restore the local landmark with the developer taking advantage of the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentive program. Today the building houses private offices and the city's Metro Transit Authority. The renovated facility was extensively damaged by flooding during Hurricane Katrina.