TUNNEL HILL, Ga. — For more than a decade, Tunnel Hill officials have believed the city’s historic railroad depot would make a great community center and tourist attraction.

Now, they are about the make that vision a reality.

“We have just signed a memorandum of understanding with the Appalachian Regional Commission for a $300,000 grant (to remodel the depot),” said City Manager Blake Griffin. “We already have an architect on board who has been working with us. He’ll now help us write a request for proposals (RFP) for a contractor to do the work. We hope to release that RFP by the end of the month. If everything goes as planned, the work should be completed by this time next year.”

Tunnel Hill received $600,000 from the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) that Whitfield County voters passed two years ago for the project, and the city will kick in another $200,000.

The goal is to turn the depot into a community center for local events and to also create a train-viewing platform.

Some local residents say they are excited about those plans.

“Ringgold has done a really good job of making its depot a place where people have parties or host concerts,” Tunnel Hill area resident Jim Reece said. “They could do something like that there, on a smaller scale.”

Brett Huske, director of tourism at the Dalton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said a renovated depot could be a “major asset” for the city.

“The Western & Atlantic railroad tunnel, the Tunnel Hill Battlefield, the Tunnel Hill Heritage Center and the Clisby Austin House are all nearby, and the tours we do of them are very successful. We’d like to see some way to add the depot to that,” Huske said.

Griffin said that because the depot is across the railroad tracks from those other attractions it might be difficult to incorporate into the daily tours but it could be added to group tours, which are booked in advance, and as part of the tours during the annual reenactment of the Battle of Tunnel Hill.

The depot dates to the start of the railroad in 1850. The General Assembly deeded the property to the city in 2007. It had been used for several decades as part of a feed mill, and it most recently was used in the first few years of the 21st century as part of a recycling business. When that firm went out of business, it left a large amount of debris on the property that Whitfield County Public Works removed under an agreement with the city.