Union Station

Open Every Day of the Year: 24 Hours a Day

" Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood."
Daniel Hudson Burnham, Union Station Designer

Imagine Truman or Roosevelt and their entourage pulling into an atrium with a 96 foot high barrel-vaulted ceiling with gold inlay, marble floors and a spiral staircase. The presidential tour steals away to the east wing where an equally ornate holding room is dedicated for the president during rail travel. Union Station, completed in 1907, has been appropriately described as a "great and impressive gateway" to the Nation's Capital. During its heyday not only did the presidents come into Union Station for their inaugurals, but the station was a city within a city containing Turkish baths, a bowling alley, a nursery, a police station, baker, butcher, a swimming pool, resident doctor, a five bed hospital and even a mortuary! Recently remodeled into a luxury mall and tourist stop consisting of more than 100 stores and a huge eatery offering dishes from pizza to sushi, it is considered to be one of the most beautiful railroad terminals in the world.

NEARBY: National Postal Museum
(Smithsonian Institution)

Open Daily (Except Christmas Day): 10:00 AM until 5:30 PM

" Messenger of sympathy and love; servant of parted friends; consoler of the lonely; bond of the scattered family; enlarger of the common life; carrier of news and knowledge; instrument of trade and industry; promoter of mutual acquaintance; of peace and good will among men and nations."
Dr. Charles W. Eliot

From the colonial era and the Pony Express to the lore of stamps, the National Postal Museum is the nation's first museum devoted to postal history. It is a highly interactive museum with video games that invite you to choose the best mail route between various cites in the 1800's and deliver mail in a Dehaviland airplane. You can also see on display three airmail planes, a railway mail car and a horse drawn coach.