A decommissioned destroyer that once called Jacksonville home could be making its way back here by next year.

"It's incredible that we've been able to make progress in keeping her from being scrapped," former captain Bob Branco tells our news partner channel 4."

The Jacksonville Historic Naval Ship Association has been trying to get the ship back for six years, and this time want to turn it into a museum dock it on the northbank of the St. Johns downtown, near the sports complex

"The naval history of Jacksonville is something that we need to continue to define and to educate not only Jacksonville, but really the country on," says supporter Christopher Flagg.

They say they've already raised $500,000 to bring it back, and the full cost of making it into a museum would be around $2 million.

The ship used to be docked in Mayport from the 1960s until when it was decommissioned in the 1990s.