When construction began on the ornate Birmingham Terminal Station, Teddy Roosevelt was president and the grim specter of World War I was eight years away.

When a wrecking ball turned the grand downtown structure into rubble more than 60 years later, President Richard Nixon was grappling with the bloody quagmire of Vietnam.

In the decades between, as America inaugurated 10 presidents, fought four wars, and the civil rights movement unfurled, the station's "Birmingham, the Magic City" sign and the building's Beaux-Arts architecture often created a visitor's first impression of the city as he or she arrived on the many trains that zipped through the city.

(Terminal Station as viewed from 5th Avenue, North in an undated photo (Ed Dismukes photo)

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P. Thornton Marye, who also designed Atlanta's Terminal Station and Fox Theatre, was the architect behind Terminal Station, Carla Jean Whitley wrote for AL.com in 2014. The 1909 building was modeled in part on Istanbul's ancient Hagia Sophia, and at its busiest served 85 to 90 trains daily. The station's welcoming Magic City sign was built in 1926 and remains iconic today, nearly 50 years years after the building was demolished.

In a July 1909 article for The American Architect, Marye wrote of how such stations were adapting to address the needs of a rapidly transforming America.

"In a short time villages have changed into towns and towns into cities," Marye wrote. "The Birmingham Terminal Station ... is the most extensive of the stations so far built in the South."

Six rail-lines on 10 tracks utilized the new station, Marye wrote.

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However, builders faced a challenge when constructing the station to comply with Alabama's restrictive segregation laws.

"The necessity for separate accommodations for the two races, which is now required by statutes in most of the Southern States, creates a problem not met with in the planning of most stations in other sections of the country," Marye wrote.

(Frisco Railway's "Sunnyland" arriving from Kansas City. The photo is undated but the train started running through Birmingham in 1925 and the company merged with another in 1980 (Dan Gray photo)

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The station opened on April 6, 1909, Marye wrote.

Bhamwiki gives this description of the station:

"The exterior of the building was primarily brick. Two 130-foot towers topped the north and south wings. The central waiting room covered 7,600 square feet and was topped by a central dome 64 feet in diameter covered in intricate tilework and featuring a skylight of ornamental glass. The bottom 16 feet of the walls of this main waiting room were finished in gray Tennessee marble.

"Connecting to the main waiting room were the ticket office, a separate ladies' waiting room, a smoking room, a barber shop, a news stand, a refreshment stand, and telephone and telegraph booths. Along the north and south concourses were the kitchen, lunch and dining rooms, another smoking room, restrooms, and the "colored" waiting room. The north wing housed two express freight companies while the south was used for baggage and mail transfer.

"Outside of the station were ten tracks. A series of overlapping "umbrella" sheds covered the platforms and tracks. These sheds provided protection from the rain while still letting in sunlight and fresh air."

(Main Waiting Room looking south in an undated photo. (Don Phillips photo)

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The opening of the building in 1909 was "one of the biggest events ever to hit Birmingham," declared a 1969 Birmingham News article looking back on the terminal's history. It featured "a balloon race, a parade led by Grand Marshall E. J. McCrossin and, that night, a banquet for city officials at the Hillman Hotel."

Writing for Gizmodo, Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan said the terminal "was like a temple to the train."

"Modeled after Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, its Byzantine spires raised eyebrows when it opened in 1909," Campbell-Dollaghan wrote.

Terminal Station Floorplan of Main Building. Thornton Marye, Architect, 1905. (Courtesy Birmingham Public Library Archives)

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Terminal Station Main Building. P. Thornton Marye, Architect, 1905. (Courtesy Birmingham Public Library Archives)

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This photo shows the station while under construction in 1906. Photographer unknown. (Courtesy Birmingham Public Library Archives)

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A photo, dated 1907, shows the Birmingham Terminal Station. (The Birmingham News archives)

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Terminal Station in the 1930s with the famous Magic City sign. The sign faced the station to welcome people arriving in Birmingham. By the 1950s, the sign had deteriorated and become a hazard, so the City Commission contracted with a scrap metal dealer to take it down and haul it away. O. V. Hunt, photographer. (Courtesy Birmingham Public Library Archives)

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The "Southerner" as it heads out of terminal station for Atlanta in 1946. The line operated from 1941 to 1970 when it merged with Amtrak's Crescent line that runs through Birmingham between New York and New Orleans.

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A photo dated May 24, 1946 shows the interior waiting room of the Birmingham Terminal Station. (The Birmingham News archives) ((The Birmingham News archives)/al.com)

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Birmingham's old Terminal station 1953

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As fewer and fewer traveled by passenger train, the station fell into disrepair, Madison Underwood wrote for AL.com in 2014. Efforts to restore the station or find another use for it were made - office space, an aviation museum and a transportation museum were among proposed uses - but they were ultimately unsuccessful.

Demolition began on Sept. 22, 1969, two months after the Alabama Public Service commission approved the razing. For many, the loss of that structure has been a black eye the city of Birmingham has never fully recovered from.

An aerial view of the Terminal Station in 1958. A. C. Keily, photographer. (Courtesy Birmingham Public Library Archives)

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"You say Terminal Station, and everyone goes, 'oh, why did we tear that down?'" Rhea Williams, executive director of American Institute of Architects Birmingham, said in 2015. "We've got a lot of great architecture still in Birmingham, and we want to make sure that it's protected."

A bird's eye view of Birmingham's Terminal Station, dated July 7, 1967. The cutline reads, in part: "Demolition of a four-block area is well under way for Birmingham's new multi-million dollar consolidated postal facility." (Bill Ricker | The Birmingham News) ((The Birmingham News archives)/al.com)

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Birmingham Mayor George Seibels, who was in office during the station's decline and demolition, himself arrived to Birmingham via the station in 1938, Whitley wrote in 2015.

By 1969, train travel was out of vogue and the building was demolished shortly after the final train departed on Dec. 21, 1969. The site was considered a potential location for the Social Security Administration building, which was ultimately built elsewhere. Red Mountain Expressway was later routed through the property, located on two blocks along 26th Street North around Fifth Avenue.

"We just didn't have enough information to try to coordinate the various interests that would have had to come together to save it," former mayor Seibels told author Suzanna Morse for a 2004 book.

A photo of the Birmingham Terminal Station dated Jan. 13, 1969, ran with the cutline, "Dirty, disheveled, and almost alone, she waits for the end. Terminal Station due for destruction, once one of Birmingham's busiest buildings." (The Birmingham News archives) ((The Birmingham News archives)/al.com)

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"Many observers felt then, as many still do, that the Terminal Company was premature in its decision to remove the station," author Marvin Clemons wrote in his 2016 book "Great Temple of Travel: A Pictorial History of Birmingham Terminal Station, 1909-1969."

"But from the facts as presented, few if any would disagree that, at the time of its removal, the building had long passed its useful life as a railroad station serving trains and passengers that no longer existed, and which would never return. Having already absorbed millions of dollars in losses from years of operating money-losing passenger trains, it's understandable that the railroads attempted to salvage what value they could from their depressed property."

(A photo, dated Sept. 21, 1969, shows a steel wrecking ball ready to begin demolition at the Birmingham Terminal Station. Demolition, carried out by the T.M. Burgin Demolition Co. Demolition was scheduled to begin the next day. The words "End Of The Line" have been added to the photo. (Haywood Paradicini | The Birmingham News archives) ((The Birmingham News archives)/al.com)

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Terminal Station's destruction provides a rallying cry for preservationists to this day, a 2011 article stated.

With the station gone, the bulk of the vacant site ended up being used as right-of-way for what is now the Elton B. Stephens Expressway that links U.S. 31 and U.S. 280 with Interstate 20/59, a 2011 article stated.

The only physical reminders of the old Terminal Station are the Fifth Avenue North tunnel, which streetcars used to travel to the station.

The HOPE VI Metropolitan Gardens now stands near the opening of the tunnel.

A photo dated Oct. 9, 1969, shows the demolition of the Birmingham Terminal Station. "Wreckers will spare the terminal's central building until a new, smaller station replaces the Birmingham landmark about Nov. 22, according to T. M. Burgin Demolition Co. officials." (The Birmingham News archives) ((The Birmingham News archives)/al.com)

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"The great shame is that Birmingham lost one of its most glorious landmarks to an ill-conceived proposition. It's certainly the most unpopular razing of any structure in the city's history, and although it probably took another ten or fifteen years after we lost the Terminal Station, we now seem to put a great deal more thought into what a particular building or landmark means to the fabric of the community. There's no more just knocking things down," former mayor Seibels concluded.

A photo dated Dec. 9, 1969, ran with a cutline that read, in part, "There was a thud, then a crumble, and the south tower of Terminal Station began to come down Monday." (The Birmingham News archives)

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"Terminal Station is iconic Birmingham. It's not the only thing we've lost but it's the thing we remember. Losing Terminal Station has saved a lot of other buildings in Birmingham," Department of Archives Head Jim Baggett told AL.com in 2015.

A lonely baggage cart on a platform at the former Birmingham Terminal Station, dated Jan. 29, 1975. The photo appears to be missing a torn section. "The huge dome of the Terminal Station is gone, and so are the glory days of railroading. But the baggage car waits on," a cutline reads, in part. (The Birmingham News archives) ((The Birmingham News archives)/al.com)

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Another baggage cart, in a photo dated Feb. 22, 1979. The cutline reads:"Looking lonely and abandoned, this baggage wagon stands silently at the site of the old Birmingham Terminal Station. After Amtrak took over The Southern Crescent, all trains started using the old L & N Station on Morris Avenue. Someone apparently forgot to move the wagon." (The Birmingham News archives)

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