Main Street Station was built in 1901 by two railroads, the Seaboard Air Line and the Chesapeake and Ohio, which had each used separate stations before. The Philadelphia firm of Wilson, Harris, and Richards designed it in the Second Renaissance Revival style. The people of Richmond call it The Clock Tower.
It became a National Historic Landmark in 1976. In 1972, Hurricane Agnes flooded the station so badly that Amtrak moved most of its Richmond stops to a smaller station in the suburbs in 1975. Fires hit the building in 1976 and 1983.
After the 1983 fire it was renovated and reopened as a shopping mall in 1985, but the mall closed in 1986. Amtrak serves the station today, and it is also a stop on the GRTC Pulse bus line.