News From Home

Mark J. Tidwell

4th Annual Miner’s Mile:  One thing I forgot to cover within the September 21st News was the Miner’s Mile 2 Mile Walk, 5K and 10K Runs.  This occurred on September 6th, Labor Day.  This was the fourth year the Miner’s Mile has been held in the Gem City of the Mountains.

     I had not come to town in previous years to see what it was all about.  I was stunned when I attempted to pull into Indian Mountain State Park to investigate the event.  One of my big projects this year has been to document the everyday life of Jellico via photo and text.  Reason being, there’s never a week goes by that someone doesn’t come into the library and want to know what Jellico was like at a particular time in its past.  Sadly, there’s not a single work I can hand someone to answer such a question.  It’s just been lost to history.  The closest I can come to meeting the demand is the unpublished manuscript by the late James Hayden Siler and his most excellent History of Jellico. This has been available online, but today’s Internet search turned up in an “error” for the site.  Maybe it is being updated or something.

     Anyway, I have diligently tried to capture most of the things going on in Jellico this year.  It may remain unpublished like Siler’s work, but at least it will be available here at Jellico Public Library for perusal, or perhaps in CD format. (A work in progress. It won’t be available until sometime in 2011.)  So, I hope in years to come, folks will have a benchmark to look back and compare their present day Jellico to.  Plus, it’s been a great deal of fun.  I’ve also learned such a great deal about town.

      This years’ Miner’s Mile drew over 300 participants!  And participants ranged in age all the way up to 90-years-old!  Talk about town being a lively place!

       Link to 10K results:  http://www.totalrace.net/upload/10k_overall_mf_comb(1).htm

       Link to 5K results:  http://www.totalrace.net/upload/5k_overall_mf_comb(5).htm

     To sum it up, it was a big day in Jellico.  Photos are worth a thousand words, so I’ve included a few of the 4th Annual Miner’s Mile.  Looking at them will add far more perspective to the event than I am able to put into words.  The first photo shows the banner at the red light near Hardee’s.  The second shows the parking area at Indian Mountain State Park overwhelmed by the event.  The last photo is of a passel of Miner’s Milers running the streets of Jellico.

   
         

Window Decorations:  Almost every downtown merchant participated in the window decorations for Fall Fest 2010 and the Alumni activities.  Boy did that generate a lot of interest!  I’d never seen folks get so up in the air, up and down the streets of Jellico.  Folks decorated with the utmost enthusiasm.  It was really cool seeing so much activity.  I was rightly impressed!

     I photographed just about every window display in town.  I found it pretty tough to do justice to the works of art. Taking pictures of the displays through the plate glass windows is less than an ideal situation.  Of course, we can’t include all those photographs here.  I’ve picked out a few for examples.  The first is of Salon 256, at Amy Creekmore’s business, where J. J. Newberry’s used to be.  The second is at Dr. Ander’s Dental Office across the road from Hardee’s.  The third is of Union Bank’s display.  They were all great!  Sorry we can’t show them all.

   
         

Fall Fest:  This year Fall Fest and the Alumni activities coincided for the first time.  The end result of this was more activity, more folks in town, than I’d ever experienced in my 46 years.  Town was an absolute beehive!  It was amazing, stunning indeed almost unbelievable.  Again, I’ll let photos do the talking.  Look at the old time photograph courtesy of Bucks Hardware & Family Museum.  Folks often look at that photo and lament about the Jellico of old when everything was hustling and bustling in the Gem City of the Mountains. 

      Then compare that to a couple of photos I took on Friday, October 3, of Jellico.  I’d say the old hustle and bustle was back and alive.  It was a great weekend for Jellico, one that will be remembered by lots of people for years to come.  For those naysayers who proclaim Jellico is dead, “Well it ain’t.”  And like Forrest Gump of movie fame once said, “That’s all I got to say about that.”

Alumni Activities:  There were a lot of Alumni activities over the busy weekend.  Here are a few photos of some of them:  folks visiting Bucks Hardware and Family Museum, some Alumni gathered at the Conference Room of the Tramell Building, which houses the Tourism Dept. and the Library, and one of Condy Alley and Ray Dobson.

   
         

Stay tuned for more News From Home sometime in the near future……………….