Brookwood Station is the only passenger train station in Atlanta.
At the corner of Peachtree Street and Deering Road stands Brookwood Station, the last remaining passenger train station in metro Atlanta. For a city that was once named Terminus, the station is a reminder of the importance of Atlanta’s train past.
According to Thornton Kennedy, board member of Buckhead Heritage, local historian and host of the History for Cocktail Parties podcast, the name Brookwood comes from a house close to the station on Peachtree. Kennedy has a personal connection: His family has had roots in Buckhead since the 1850s, including a great-great-great-grandfather who was one of the conductors on the first passenger train to pull into Union Station, Atlanta’s first train depot in 1845. By the late 1800s, Atlantans were beginning to move north of what is now downtown, Rhodes Hall had been built, and Ansley Park and Tuxedo Park had been created. “The area was evolving,” Kennedy says.
Originally called Peachtree Railway Station, Brookwood Station was built by the Southern Railway Company (now Norfolk Southern) in 1918. Trains came straight through with the sole purpose of dropping off passengers, and there was no turning around or backing up. Now, only one train makes a stop: Amtrak’s Crescent line runs from New Orleans to Washington, D.C.
“The whole impetus for the second passenger depot was to take the pressure off the downtown station and put people closer to their homes,” Kennedy says. Before Brookwood Station, passengers who lived on the north side were dropped off downtown at Terminal Station, where the Richard B. Russell Federal Building stands today. “It would take you an hour to get home,” he says, but Brookwood cut considerable time off their commutes. “It was very important to the development of Atlanta.”
Kennedy says that, while many train depots were massive, Brookwood Station is small in comparison. The building was designed by the noteworthy architect Neel Reid’s firm in an Italian Renaissance style. The building has Palladian windows and entrance ways on every facade except the rear, and has three bays and four brick pilasters with limestone bases. “It’s a small building, but a handsome one. The inside has church pew benches and curved, vaulted ceilings throughout, and light fixtures that look like street lamps,” Kennedy says. “There’s even a little garden on the side where the highway is. It’s a jewel box of a station.”
Originally segregated with an African-American waiting area and restrooms, it was desegregated after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the partition is still visible today. In 1976, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The last renovation was in advance of the 1996 Olympics. While that might sound strange to upgrade a station served by only one train a day, Kennedy says Europeans were used to traveling by train and did so to and from Washington, D.C., for the games. “I have a feeling they were quite shocked to get into the teeny tiny station,” Kennedy says.
Now, 76,000 people use the stop every year, a small number compared to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s 108 million. Today, it’s known as both Brookwood Station and Peachtree Station, hinting at its history and importance. The station is open for visitors and passengers between 7:30 a.m. and 11:59 p.m., with a three-hour closure between 3 and 6 p.m.
BROOKWOOD STATION
amtrak.com/stations/atl
@amtrak
BUCKHEAD HERITAGE SOCIETY
buckheadheritage.com
@preservebuckhead
PHOTOS: Erik Meadows
