BOOM! September 2022

Travel Experiences with Jeff Barganier

All Aboard!

We recently visited Nashville to attend a writer’s conference, featuring some two-dozen convention and tourism agents from across the Southeast. The event took place in, of all places, Fat Bottom Brewery’s spacious meeting room. Worked for me. It was all the beer and snacks you could drink and eat while writers and agents converged in five-minute sessions, speed-dating style. You had to have your thirty-second elevator spill down to navigate the two and a-half hour marathon—like drinking tourism info through a fire hose. But next time I visit Nashville, I’ll definitely entertain a stop at Fat Bottom, one of Nashville’s premier craft breweries. A huge plus on this trip was the opportunity to lodge in a train depot.

Cindy loves old depots and this one was special.

It seems historic train depots are everywhere, hearkening back to a bygone era. Some are modest buildings while others assume a grandeur unmatched by modern architecture. Nashville’s Union Station is definitely one of the latter. This depot is so magnificent that words hardly do it justice. It’s a structure you have to experience in the flesh. And you can! Marriott reopened it as a hotel in 1986 and added it to its Autograph Collection in 2012.

When I was a kid, I did what every red-blooded American boy did

Nashville's Union Station Hotel

if he could get away with it—I played on the railroad tracks. Yeah, I’ll bet American boys—back in the days when boys were boys and girls were proud of it—probably placed millions of pennies on the nation’s railroad tracks. My friends and I would place pennies on the track and wait for L&N’s famous passenger train “Humming Bird” to transform them into shiny elliptical sheets of copper. It was an expensive gambit. In those days a penny was actually worth something. Two of them would buy a piece of bubble gum. Ten would get you a coke. Today, who even bends over to pick up a lost penny? With government-induced freight-trainlike inflation bearing down on us, consider this: Two hundred million pennies ($200,000) built this timeless palatial edifice called Union Station Nashville Yards!

As aptly stated on its Web site, “The Union Station Nashville Yards is the city’s signature historic hotel for modern-day travelers. Established in 1900, the former train terminal features grand architectural elements and original art that transport guests to a gilded era while offering modern boutique accommodations and amenities that signal the hotel’s timeless grace and enduring spirit.”

I can see those Gilded Age travelers in my mind’s eye: They’re strolling into the stunning neo-Romanesque lobby beneath 128 panels of curved stained glass and massive crystal chandeliers. A couple scans

42 BOOM! September 2022 RiverRegionBoom.com

The River Region’s 50+ Lifestage Magazine

the schedule board for the next departure of the Humming Bird. Other passengers stand warming their hands in front of the ginormous limestone fireplace. And others step over to the newspaper stand for the latest edition of the Times.

Cindy beside Depot Newell Post

During war, thousands of troops departed Union Station to deploy overseas. It’s told that one grief-stricken young lady whose soldier never came home from war, flung herself in front of a train. Some say her spirit lurks on the 7th floor. Umm, Okay. Our airy room with its eighteen-foot ceiling was once an L&N administrative office located on the 5th floor balcony. Its huge arched window used to allow officials to gaze down on the passengers below. The spectacular relief artwork on this floor tells

Days Gone By Train Schedule

the history of transportation from the “beginning of time” until 1900. Clocks are prominent at either end of the 5th floor, speaking to the punctuality of the trains that passed through the station. Twenty unique “angels of commerce” circle the lobby. Each holds a different item of Tennessee production, ranging from corn and wheat to livestock and tobacco. Sadly, after serving Nashville from 1900 to 1979, the last train stopped at Union Station with only 22 passengers.

Present day, the 125- room hotel is situated within the Nashville Yards business and entertainment district along the perimeter of the city’s growing downtown, minutes from the amenities and attractions of Nashville’s dynamic urban neighborhoods, including The Gulch,

Midtown, and Music Row. Thus, Union Station makes a wonderful hub from which to explore not only Nashville but points minutes north in Tennessee’s scenic agricultural countryside.

That’s where we found quaint and lively Springfield, Tennessee, the perfect place for lunch on our drive north to the Red River Meeting House in Adairville, Kentucky. Watch future issues of BOOM! for the story of our pilgrimage to this historic Christian house of worship where America’s 2nd Great Awakening broke out late in the 18th Century.

Could America be on the threshold of a third spiritual awakening? My next feature will disclose what American frontier settlers—eye witnesses of that transformative move of God—had to say; and their shocking prophecy about America’s future.

Union Station Ceiling

Are you ready? All aboard!

www.fatbottombrewing.com www.unionstationhotelnashville.com

Jeff S. Barganier is a novelist, travel writer and manager of Cindy Barganier Interiors LLC (www.cindybarganier. com). He travels far and wide upon the slightest excuse for something interesting to write about. Contact: Jeffbarganier@knology.net. Instagram: @jeffbarganier. You may print out Jeff’s features at www.jeffbarganier.com

The River Region’s 50+ Lifestage Magazine

facebook.com/RiverRegionBoom

September 2022

BOOM! 43