The beautiful GM&O Mobile Station beckons motorists off of I-165. For a 100+ year old station it is in great shape and hopefully the city will get some of the tree growth off the roof. Quote from GM&O employee Jim Sweatt - "The station was constructed in 1905-1906 by the Mobile & Ohio Railroad and was designed by architect P. Thorton Mayre; the total cost was $575,000. The style is most likely Mission Revival Style. The Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad (successor company to the Mobile & Ohio Railroad) vacated the building in 1986. After standing vacant for a number of years, the building was purchased by the City of Mobile and rehabilitated. Today the building is the headquarters office for the Metro Transit Authority, the local bus company. The original location of the tracks and platforms behind the building is now a parking lot and bus station. The building accommodates a number of businesses and is a good example of adaptive reuse." And from Wiki - "Passenger service into the station was discontinued by the late 1950's 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 The Wave Transit System. The renovated facility was extensively damaged by flooding during Hurricane Katrina."
