The South Florida Railroad built a railway through Orlando in 1880, helping a small community boom with land speculators, citrus and cattle investors, and tourists. After the larger Atlantic Coastline Railroad acquired the South Florida Railroad in 1902, it replaced Orlando’s earlier Church Street depots with a new station on Sligh Boulevard designed in 1926 by architect M.A. Griffith, whose travels on the Pacific Coast inspired a Spanish Mission style influenced by Spanish architecture and colonial parish churches. Built by the W.T. Hadlow Construction Company of Jacksonville under a $300,000 contract, the station featured twin bell towers, arches, a parapet, a tile roof, and the letters “ORLANDO” over the west entrance arch. Dedicated in January 1927 before a crowd of more than 6,000, it quickly became an icon and reflected the city’s push to encourage tourism during the 1920s Florida Land Boom. The racially segregated building included a separate waiting room with ticket windows and restrooms for African American passengers on the south side, and built-in curved wooden settees that once furnished both waiting rooms now remain only in the current waiting room. Since opening, it has served residents, visitors, and workers as a passenger terminal; after the 1967 merger of two rail companies, “Seaboard Coast Line” replaced “Atlantic Coast Line” on the east arched parapet. The building was documented by the Historic American Buildings Survey, designated an Orlando Historic Landmark on February 27, 1978, and extensively renovated beginning in 2014, with research restoring original colors, wood doors, and windows; in 2015 the project received the City of Orlando’s Historic Preservation award for Outstanding Commercial Rehabilitation. It is considered the largest and finest example of Mission Revival architecture in Central Florida, the only train station of this style in the state, and it serves Amtrak’s Silver Meteor and Silver Star lines and the SunRail commuter train.