Right in the heart of downtown Clayton, The Station is giving new life to a century of local history.

Once home to the town's fire department, police station, jail, and even the library, this historic landmark has been transformed into a vibrant gathering place filled with local food, drinks, shopping, and more.

- The Station is located in the heart of downtown Clayton.

It's a multi-tenant space, everything located right here in the heart of downtown.

The building actually is 100 years old next year.

It was once the courthouse, the fire department, the police station, the jail, so it housed pretty much all of the city services in one beautiful building.

We kept looking at this building.

It had just been fallen apart, but we saw it as an opportunity.

- It went from kind of an eyesore within town to this beautiful, refinished, stunning place that you see today, but the community, first and foremost, appreciates the revitalization of the building, and then secondarily, just the support of small businesses, local commerce, driving economic vitality back into downtown Clayton, keeping our farmers and our local business makers supported.

Every space has got a different use than it originally served, so taking the jail from the jail to a candle-making studio, taking the library into a full-service restaurant/cafe.

- It's a grocery market.

It's food.

It's community.

So everyone in the building, there's seven or eight different tenants within the whole building that are just rocking.

- So this is a Wisp Candle Studio and Something Art Related, and here you get to create your own candles.

You can create your own signature fragrance.

I have artwork from all Clayton residents and local artists.

These are the things that we do in here.

My name's Jenna Marra, and I own Brushes and Brows.

We offer primarily beauty services to local women and anybody in the community who needs them.

- Happy Vibes originally started just us wanting to take care of ourselves.

From there, honestly, I was like, "We need to build community."

I want to have, you know, people come in, and we share a laugh.

We share a name.

The history of the building is just so special to us, to see it grow and for us to be a part of the legacy.

- Well, we are a restaurant and a music hall.

Daniela and I are very passionate about the restaurant industry.

We are also very passionate about music, and we thought what better way to combine the two passions than to create a restaurant/music hall?

And when you come into Crescendo, the idea is for you to feel the music radiating off the walls.

We want the vibe to scream music and just be a collection of all our favorite artists and all of our favorite sounds.

Being as she's from California and I'm from New York, we decided to combine the flavors from our home states and mix them with what we've come to know and love here in North Carolina.

- We do General Tso's Brussels sprouts, which are by far our most popular item on the menu.

I think the coolest thing that's happened is really the oxtail.

- We kind of pull them off the bone, and we put it-- putting it in a quesadilla for lunch.

So in addition to Crescendo, you will find a record shop that also has canned beer and bottled wines.

The idea behind that is also so that we can pair the canned beers and the wines with the records.

So it's like, what are you drinking when you're listening to Dr.

Dre's "The Chronic"?

The idea is just to, you know, create, like, an all-in-one space where you can blend music and blend drinks as well.

It's been a really cool experience, and I couldn't think of another place that we would have wanted to open Crescendo and thriving.

- We definitely pride ourselves in having, like, different styles of food, different ethnicities supported throughout all of our vendor spaces so that we could really embody what we feel like Clayton is and who the people are that will be supporting us.

♪ - Our hope for The Station is that it would be a place where the community comes and just fills the hallways.

All the people, everybody that is in Clayton can come here and find something awesome, at the same time be supporting a local business.

- North Carolina means everything to us.

Clayton means a lot to us, but supporting small is how your businesses grow.

It's how your community is taken care of.

Your roads are paved.

Your teachers are better and paid more.

So really investing in Johnston County, investing in North Carolina to us, first and foremost, before supporting a big-box store is wildly important.

- To have a building that is all small businesses, just to be able to be a part of that in the local community, but also being able to be a part of yet another piece of history for this building, I think is really special.

- Being a part of Clayton itself has been really great for us, especially moving here from New York, finding this building, this area, this group of people that they're all about community, we fit right in with them.

- The people in Clayton, they just embrace everybody.

Like you come to Clayton one time, your family, it still has kept that small town charm where everybody knows everybody.

Everybody looks out for everybody.

It just feels always like a celebration every day.

- Clayton is a huge part of my heart.

- The Station is located at 231 East 2nd Street in Clayton.

For more information about the vendors and hours, visit them online at thestationclayton.com.