Daily News Journal, Brian Wilson , June 14, 2015
SMYRNA — A six-month celebration of Smyrna’s past 100 years kicked off Friday in a historic neighborhood where town leaders have focused improvements and redevelopment.
Smyrna City Councilman Tim Morrell prepares to place a time capsule into a hole dug in front of the depot in Smyrna on Friday. The capsule is filled with everyday items and information about Smyrna. The Simply Smyrna Celebration kicked off the town’s Centennial Celebration that will last through the next six months.
The centennial event at the Simply Smyrna celebration was geared to recognize the town’s history and consider how its next steps can keep that history in mind, said Smyrna Mayor Mary Esther Reed.
“I hope it continues to bring our community together, refocus on our past and start a conversation on the town’s future,” Reed said.
Between the horns and rumbles of a passing CSX train, town officials spoke of the town’s past and future before they filled and buried a time capsule to be opened in 100 years in front of the historic depot.
The Depot District neighborhood where the event was held has seen recent renovations that allowed it to be a gathering place for events like the centennial.
“It’s just a time for recognition and celebration,” said Susan Gulley, the chief operating officer for Carpe Artista and a member of the town’s revitalization task force. “There’s been a big revitalization in this part of Smyrna for two years now.”
Transportation roots
The Friday event recognized a town its leaders described with roots in transportation and decades of continued growth and development — even if its title as a town wasn’t always present.
Smyrna’s ties to the train lines started before the town even got its name from a nearby Presbyterian church, according to Walter King Hoover’s “A History of the Town of Smyrna, Tenn.”
The community was first a “way station” on the Chattanooga-Nashville railroad before dozens of lots surrounding it were sold at auction in 1859, the book stated. The town was first incorporated in 1869 but had its charter repealed by state lawmakers in 1881.
The town had violated the state’s “Four Mile Law” that regulated the ownership of saloons and banned them within four miles of a church or place of worship, according to the book.
“We must have been a little more interested in keeping a saloon than being a town,” Reed said, joking, when talking about the town’s history at Simply Smyrna.
The community went without a charter for the next 34 years until the state allowed it to reincorporate in June 1915.
While Smyrna has kept its status as a town since then, the community didn’t see substantial growth until the years after the opening of the Sewart Air Force Base during World War II, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
After the base officially closed in 1971, town leaders including mayors and twin brothers Sam a nd Knox Ridley worked to keep the area attractive for future development, said Town Councilman H.G. Cole.
“They picked up what w as our community and laid the foundation for what it is today,” Cole said.
The infrastructure made the centrally located town attractive for Nissan, Cole said. The automaker, now the largest private employer in Rutherford County, opened its first North American plant in Smyrna in 1983.
Census data showed Smyrna continued to grow at least 50 percent in each decade since and estimated the town had more than 40,000 residents in 2013.
Revitalization continues
Town officials will continue to celebrate the centennial during events throughout the next six months, though no specific events to celebrate the community’s history are planned.
Aden Stairs, 6, helps cover the time capsule buried in front of the Depot on Friday during the kick off to the town’s Centennial Celebration.
Many of those events like Depot Days or the Smyrna Farmer’s Market will take place in the Depot District, a neighborhood well-rooted in the town’s history and the site of recent and proposed revitalization.
More businesses have set up shop at Front Street in the past two years as the town invested energy into renovating the old depot that was the central point for Friday’s events. Entrepreneurs are proposing to revitalize additional buildings and turn them into a performance venue or theater. “There’s been quite a bit of infusion to get those buildings back into shape and to get businesses in them,” Gulley said. The combination of businesses and events like Simply Smyrna and Depot Days are bringing residents to the old district and asking when the district can be used more often, the mayor said.
“That’s what Front Street and the historic part of downtown allows us to do,” Reed said.
Lifelong Smyrna resident Nora Mai Peebles said the Friday event brought “more people than I’ve seen here in a long, long time.”
Nora Mai Peebles, 97, one of the oldest living Smyrna natives, gets a chance to speak Friday as Smyrna councilman Paul Johns holds her microphone.
Peebles, 97, was recognized as one of the oldest continuous residents of Smyrna during the centennial celebration.
She said the events in the historic part of town continued to bring people back.
“I was really surprised to see the people come back each month,” Peebles said.
Members of Smyrna’s r evitalization task force are aiming to have that redevelopment reach Lowr y Street on the other side of the train depot.
Town officials hope to work with the state Department of Transportation to improve parts of state Route 1 or Lowry Street. Smyrna’s part of the project could include new sidewalks, landscapes and lighting.
The focus on the town’s history, though the centennial project or additional revitalization, does not mean the town should ignore further development outside of the neighb orhood or in areas that have seen newer growth in recent decades, Gulley said.
The work made by each of Smyrna’s past generations influences its future, Cole said.
“As we grow, we stand on the people before us,” Cole said. “We stand on top of what the people built before us.”
Contact Brian Wilson at 615-2785165 and [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter@brianwilson17.