Union Station Hotel

Downtown Nashville’s 1900 railroad terminal, now a working luxury hotel. The great hall where passengers once waited for their trains is the lobby of The Union Station Nashville Yards.

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad built it in 1900 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, its lobby ceiling a barrel vault of stained glass. The Library of Congress holds its architectural record.

It joined the National Register of Historic Places on December 30, 1969.

Rail traffic fell away and by the late 1970s the building faced demolition. Historic Nashville fought the wrecking ball, and the terminal reopened as a hotel in 1986.

As ghost tours tell it, a WWII bride, Abigail, saw her soldier off to France from this platform. When word came he was killed, the story goes, she threw herself before a train.

The story does not end with her death. Guides describe her spirit lingering at the station still, watching the tracks.

Guests in room 711 report flickering lights, cold spots, figures in the mirrors, and phones ringing with no one there. Some hear footsteps overhead, though 711 sits on the top floor.

The earliest telling on record is recent: a May 2017 National Trust for Historic Preservation piece by Sarah Heffern, which frames Abigail plainly as legend, not history.

The lobby, bar, and restaurant are open to anyone; room 711 is bookable. The hotel keeps it dressed in 1940s vintage, and USA Today readers voted it America’s best haunted hotel.