Hattiesburg, MS (HBG)

308 Newman Street
Hattiesburg, MS 39401

Station Hours

Annual Ticket Revenue (FY 2024): $622,008
Annual Station Ridership (FY 2024): 10,087

• Ownerships
• Routes Served
• Contact
• Local Community Links

• Facility Ownership: City of Hattiesburg
• Parking Lot Ownership: City of Hattiesburg
• Platform Ownership: Norfolk Southern Railway
• Track Ownership: Norfolk Southern Railway

• Crescent

Todd Stennis
Regional Contact
governmentaffairsnol@amtrak.com
For information about Amtrak fares and schedules, please visit Amtrak.com or call 1-800-USA-RAIL (1-800-872-7245).

• City of Hattiesburg
• Hattiesburg Case Study: Economic Development

The 14,000-square-foot brick Hattiesburg depot was completed in 1910 by the Southern Railway. One of the larger and more elaborate surviving passenger depots in Mississippi, the station has been in continuous use since it first opened. It was built in an Italian Renaissance style with large round-arched windows and a hipped roof clad in clay tile and tin, and it was noted for its 924-foot-long canopy, which was partially removed in 1958. The depot is located in the Newman-Buschman Railroad Historic District, the city’s oldest neighborhood and once the site of the Newman Lumber Company.

In early 1998, the city began negotiating with then-owner Norfolk Southern Railway to purchase the depot. The transfer of the building and surrounding 2.28 acres to the city took place in the summer of 2000. Hattiesburg then embarked on a three-phase project to rehabilitate the station complex.

Phase I consisted of restoration of the clay roof tiles, dormers and skylights. Phase II focused on interior restoration of the ornamental plaster, original flooring and other historic features while making the building more accessible. Phase III included extending the platform canopy to its original 924-foot length, adding additional parking and landscaping, and realigning the local traffic patterns surrounding the depot to help repurpose it as an intermodal transportation center.

Special attention was given to the Grand Hall, a double-height room lined with pilasters topped with Corinthian capitals. This beautiful space was converted into an events venue that’s available for rentals throughout the year.

The restored building was rededicated on April 21, 2007, celebrated with a black-tie gala event the night before. The rehabilitation work cost $10 million and took five years to complete. Funding was obtained through federal earmark allocations, a $25,000 grant from the Great American Stations Foundation, state funds through the ISTEA program and matching funds from the city of Hattiesburg.

In July 2025, the city renamed the station complex in honor of former mayor J. Ed Morgan, who led Hattiesburg at the time the depot rehabilitation project got underway. The J. Ed Morgan Intermodal Facility stands as a testament to his vision for downtown revitalization in the late 20th century. In a long career of public service, Morgan also served as a city councilman and state senator.

Hattiesburg, known as the “Hub City,” is the seat of Forrest County, though it sits in both Forrest and Lamar counties. In 1882, William Hardy, pioneer lumberman and civil engineer, founded the community in the fork of the Leaf and Bouie rivers. Early settlers came from Georgia and the Carolinas, attracted by the vast areas of virgin pine timberlands. Hardy gave the city its name in honor of his wife, Hattie, when it was incorporated in 1884. The New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, built from Meridian, Mississippi, to New Orleans, came through Hattiesburg in 1884. Completion of the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad from Gulfport to Jackson, Mississippi, crossed through Hattiesburg in 1897, ushering in the region’s lumber boom. It was this crossing of the rail lines that first earned Hattiesburg the title of “Hub City.”

In the 20th century, the city benefited from the founding of Camp Shelby, two major hospitals and the public University of Southern Mississippi where Brett Farve played college football. Hattiesburg is also home to William Carey University, a private, Baptist university. Hattiesburg is where Bernard Ebbers and a group of investors, meeting over dinner, first sketched out the idea for MCI/WorldCom after the breakup of AT&T.

The city – and particularly the train station – are claimed by some to be the birthplace of rock and roll: 1936 recordings, made in the station by Blind Roosevelt Graves, his brother Uaroy and pianist Cooney Vaughn, billed as the “Mississippi Jook Band,” were what rock historian Robert Palmer, in his 1976 book, felt to be the first fully-formed rock riffs and beat. Coincidentally, musicians Jimmy Buffet, Van Dyke Parks, Webb Wilder and Clifton Hyde have also been claimed by Hattiesburg.

Station Building (with waiting room)