Nashville's Union Station is a former railroad terminal designed by Richard Montfort, chief engineer of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N), and built between 1898 and 1900 to serve the passengers of the eight railroads that provided passenger service to Nashville, Tennessee, at the time, but principally the L&N. Built just west of the downtown area, it was spanned by a viaduct adjacent to the station and positioned to the east and above a natural railroad cut, through which most of the tracks in the area were routed. The station was also used by streetcars prior to their discontinuance in Nashville in 1941.

Richard Montfort, was an Irish-American architect and engineer. He served as the first chief engineer of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad from 1887 to 1905, and in this capacity designed several of the L&N's most important structures, including Union Station in Nashville, Tennessee (1898–1900), and the L&N station in Knoxville (1904–05). He was one of the key persons to contribute to the L&N's growth over the last quarter of the nineteenth century and first quarter of the twentieth into one of the US's most robust corporations.