THOMASVILLE — A plaque erected in Thomasville more than six decades ago has a new face.

The plaque, erected in 1956, pays tribute to an 1820s-era U.S. Army engineer, John Coffee, who oversaw the building of Coffee Road.

In the 1820s, supplies — cloth, coffee, sugar and other goods — entered Georgia at the Savannah port and made their way across the state on Coffee Road, which traversed Thomas County to the Florida line, said Lyndall Knight, commander of Allen-Cook Post No. 4995 Veterans of Foreign Wars in Thomasville.

“They stopped in Barwick,” Knight said, adding that a similar plaque is in Barwick.

The plaque was originally erected by the Georgia Historical Commission at the intersection of Remington Avenue and Kern Street, where it remained until an urban renewal project widened Kern. It was moved to the present site on city right-of-way between Seward and South Dawson streets.

As a VFW post project, Knight and post quartermaster Greg Thweatt took the plaque to Knight’s home shop, where they pressure-washed and sanded it. They then applied seven coats of primer paint and an equal number of coats of finish paint.

A one-inch roller was dipped in gold automotive paint and rolled “very easily” on plaque lettering to apply an initial thin coat, Knight said.

“After that, I took an artist’s brush and applied three more coats by hand,” he said.

The restoration process required three weeks to complete.

The plaque restoration is part of the local veterans’ community involvement program.