Georgia State Central Hospital used to be the home of over 13,000 mental patients, according to Amy Wright with the Georgia Capital Museum.
The hospital has now fallen in disrepair, but the museum is hoping they get a matching grant to remodel the Train Station Depot.
"That depot became the end of the line for many people who came here for treatment and were later able to return to their home, but often they spent the rest of their life here," Wright said.
She was detailing the old train depot that sits on more than 2,000 acres at Central State Hospital, which was once the nation's largest mental institution. The hospital was also a huge economic center of Baldwin County until it closed several years ago.
"Thousands of people worked out here at Central State Hospital, and positions, everything from administrators to medical personnel and those who looked after the fire department. It was a community within itself, really, a city," she said.
Now the Georgia Capital Museum is requesting that the Milledgeville City Council be a applicant. A certified city government is one of the parameters that must be met for the grant. That would help renovate the old train depot. The grant would be a Museum on an historic preservation grant through the state of Georgia, according to Wright.
Once the renovations are completed, it will be a center the entire community can enjoy. Wright said the completed faculty will have, "A theater and the new expanded museum, there will be a cafe, the depot diner, there will be a bookstore and gift shop."
Wright is really looking forward to transforming the depot.
"That building is in peril and then you see architecture who works on historic preservation come in and show how that building can be restored and repurposed for modern use. You can't help but to be passionate about this project," said Wright.
The resolution will come up for a vote at the next council meeting Tuesday, January 23 in Milledgeville at 6:30 p.m.