While there is still a lot of work left to do, one big project at the old Jacksonville train depot is well underway.Wednesday afternoon, a crew from Southern Heart Pine Recovery removed the 100+-year-old flooring from the building. The old boards will be taken to SHPR’s Georgia facility where they will be planed and split in half. The usable boards will return to Jacksonville for installation at the depot.
“We were concerned about how we were going to be doing the flooring and then these guys from Southern Heart Pine volunteered to take it up, charge us no labor, they’re just going to charge us what it costs for them to transport it over to their plant in Georgia and re-plane it. So we’ll be spending about a dollar a square foot and we couldn’t go buy flooring for that,” said Mayor Johnny Smith.
Smith approached Scott Davis, President of Southern Heart Pine Recovery, about the project a few weeks ago. The city knew it would be too expensive to pay for refinishing the floors and had been looking into purchasing new flooring for the building. Davis’ help with the project will allow Jacksonville to keep an important part of the depot’s past.
“The mayor called me and asked me to come take a look at it to see what we could do about preserving the history here. So, we decided to volunteer our services and decided to just go ahead and make a commitment to Jacksonville. We’re just excited to be a part of it. We want to preserve the historical value in the building without having to do a lot of replacing,” said Davis.
Many of the boards in the old building are insect-ridden and will not be able to be re-used, but Davis has a solution for that as well.
“We’re going to be a little bit short of doing the whole thing, so we’re going to provide wood from the mill that will match this wood to finish out the flooring in here,” said Davis, whose company is also working on the demolition of the three-story building at the old Union Yarn Mill.
With the flooring removed, the volunteers, headed by Ollie Noles, who are working on the project, can focus on getting plumbing and air-conditioning in place while the city is working to find someone to clean the exterior.
“I can’t believe it’s started. I’d given up hope. It’ll take a long time doing it like this, but at least we’re doing something with it,” said Smith.
