Sep 9, 2013

First Impressions: Welcome Center and Last Stop Gift Shop are Visitors’ First Contact with Rome and Its ResidentsBy Severo AvilaRomeNews-Tribune.com

Rome, GA – It may not be as iconic as the Clocktower or as big as Berry College but there’s another Rome location that gets thousands of visitors a month.

The Visitor Center and Last Stop Gift Shop on Jackson Hill (across Turner McCall Boulevard from Steak ’n Shake) is a small building with a “Welcome to Rome” sign out front, charming landscaping and garden — the latter carefully tended by members of Rome’s Three Rivers Garden Club. And oh yeah, there’s a caboose sitting out front as well.

“The caboose came from just over the county line in Gordon County,” said the center’s special projects and sales coordinator Luke Chaffin. “There was a depot was here first, then it became a welcome center, then a gift shop as well.”

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