Depot Day festival

I recently exchanged some emails with a person who was thinking of moving to Smyrna. One question she asked was "Where is the center of town?". As Smyrna developed as a depot town, there is no traditional downtown such as the one Murfreesboro enjoys.

What we do have is Front street as our downtown, and the businesses there want you, and new Smyrnan's (Smyrnians? Smyrnites?)who have recently moved in, to know about it by hosting the Depot Day festival.

The upcoming Depot Day festival, set for 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Oct. 13 along Front Street, may be what's needed to restore identity to the area. The historic area, which evolved when Smyrna served as a stop for steam engines along the Chattanooga/Nashville Road, includes roughly 50 businesses along Front and Lowry streets between College and Jackson streets.
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Joel Cox of Joe B's Furniture, the event chairman, remembers the last festival being about 20 years ago, when about 16,000 people lived here. Since then, Smyrna's population has doubled.

"I think Depot Days is an important part of restoring the community feel the town enjoyed many years ago. Since Smyrna has been booming so much in that last 15 to 20 years, you've sort of lost some of that feel. But I think Depot Days will help in restoring that," he said.

Business owners have committed to offering activities such as apple bobbing, craft sales and face painting. Cox expects the biggest draw will be the petting zoo Smyrna Feed & Supply owner Darrell Harrington is arranging.

"We ourselves are going to sell homemade pies and do a drawing for a gift certificate. We haven't decided if it will be $350 or $500, but it'll be significant," he said.

With the newly refurbished downtown, and all of the parking, plus the petting zoo, this should be a fun day for the family.

I'm going to look into setting up a This is Smyrna, Tn. table myself.