PENDERGRASS, Ga. - For more than 120 years, the city's historic train depot has served as the centerpiece of this western Jackson County town.

Now, the building, which has been used as chambers for Pendergrass City Council, a home for the police department and a community gathering place, is receiving a facelift.

"That's the center of our town," Pendergrass Mayor Monk Tolbert said of the depot. "We couldn't very well tear down what was the center of downtown. It has a lot of significance."

The council in April voted to spend $40,000 to renovate the exterior of the building.

"Hopefully we can bring it in under that," Tolbert said, adding that city leaders might consider updating the building's interior later.

The depot was built in 1883, the same year the Gainesville, Jefferson and Southern Railroad was completed through town, said Tina Harris, president of Jackson County Historical Society. The depot, which served passengers until 1927, was apparently built on the other side of the tracks and was moved to its present location about 1940 when U.S. Highway 129 was paved.

"It was a farming community, and then everybody started growing cotton," Harris said. "To have a railroad depot to (deliver) your cotton (to) was a good thing for the farmers."

Construction of the Gainesville, Jefferson and Southern Railroad started in 1872 and took 11 years to complete. Crews started in both Jefferson and Gainesville and worked toward Pendergrass.

A crew, headed by Franklin Lafayette Pendergrass, reached the area first, and when the city was incorporated on Aug. 11, 1891, it was named in his honor. The town, previously known as Garden Valley, stretched a half-mile in each direction from the depot. Elsewhere in Jackson County, the Hoschton City Council voted May 2 to spend $1,850 to repair some termite damage to its train depot. The building served a branch of the Gainesville Midland Railway, a successor of the Gainesville, Jefferson and Southern Railroad.

In Talmo, up the line from Pendergrass, a refurbished depot was moved away from the tracks in recent years.

Though Pendergrass is growing and development plans call for a shopping center to be built along the U.S. Highway 129 Bypass, the train depot and nearby buildings - including City Hall and the police department - will remain the centerpiece of Pendergrass, Tolbert said.