Evergreen needs an historical walking tour like many surrounding cities

Butler County Courthouse in Greenville, Ala.

On Sunday, I got to do something I’ve wanted to do for several years – I took the downtown Greenville historical walking tour.

Greenville’s Chamber of Commerce developed this walking tour a number of years ago and make it available through their Web site and brochures. To take the tour, all you have to do is follow an easy-to-read map that describes historic locations along the route.

A number of cities a short drive from Evergreen have walking tours of this type, including Monroeville, Camden, Selma, Mobile and Pensacola. These cities know that self-guided tours of this type are a good, inexpensive way to attract tourists to their cities and to allow them to learn more about their histories.

I’ve always thought that a self-guided walking tour of Evergreen would be an asset to the city and would attract history-minded tourists to Evergreen’s downtown area. At this time, Evergreen has no historic walking tour, but the idea has been discussed in the past. Unfortunately, it never got beyond the discussion phase.

I think that the establishment of a historic walking tour in Evergreen would be relatively inexpensive. As far as I can tell, the biggest expense would be the printing of a brochure that would map out and describe the sites on the tour. Printing costs could be kept low by offering the brochure for download on the local Chamber of Commerce’s Web site, so that anyone interested in taking the tour could print it at home at no cost to any local public organization. Tour brochures could also be made available for pick up at the library, the Chamber of Commerce office and at city hall.

A walking tour of downtown Evergreen could include a number of historic locations within a short distance of “No Man’s Land.” Possible tour locations could include the Old L&N Depot, the Bank of Evergreen (Old Pix Theatre) building, the Old Evergreen High School arch, the Old Baptist Orphanage site, The Evergreen Courant, the Evergreen Caboose, the Evergreen City School building, the historic homes along Main Street, the Old Evergreen Cemetery, the county war memorial monument, Evergreen Baptist Church, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church and the other older churches downtown.

Visitors wouldn’t necessarily have to enter any of these locations, and the brochure would provide them with detailed information about each site. The tours in Greenville, Camden, Monroeville, Selma, Mobile and Pensacola are designed this way, allowing tour-takers to move along at their own pace. I’ve taken all of those tours in recent years, and they’re each about an hour long, give or take.

In the end, I think a historic walking tour in Evergreen would be an inexpensive way to attract a few tourists to downtown Evergreen. It probably wouldn’t bring a flood of sightseers to the city, but it would attract folks who enjoy local history, old architecture and seeing “old-timey” places up close.

And while those people are here, I’m sure they’ll be spending their money in our local gas stations, restaurants and possibly in our hotels.

I know that I’m not alone when I say that I’d be happy to help work on the creation of a historic walking tour of downtown Evergreen, so if anyone out there is interested in this project, let me know.