Marthasville

Good luck with today's mentalfloss.com Brain Game Free-for-All Friday challenge (and a bonus if you get the connection between the word below and the title of today's BG):

By removing one letter from the mix at each step, and rearranging the others as necessary to form new words, reduce the word "TERMINUS" to the letter "U." T E R M I N U S _ _ _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _ _ _ _  _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ U

Here is one SOLUTION.

ONE SOLUTION:

T E R M I N U S
S T E R N U M
M U S T E R
S T R U M
M U S T
S U M
U S
U

BONUS ANSWER:

Before the city of Atlanta, Georgia took its name, it was known both as Marthasville and Terminus.

Did you come up with an alternate sequence of words? Feel free to share them in the comments below, and thanks for playing!