More than $40,000 has recently been invested for interpretation and promotion of Sgt. Alvin C. York State Park in Pall Mall and Cordell Hull Birthplace State Park in Byrdstown.
“Visitors to both parks will now have a richer experience,” said Claudia Johnson, executive director of the Sgt. York Patriotic Foundation, the nonprofit organization that obtained a federal tourism grant for enhancing the parks.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) offered a special grant for tourism development available to only the counties in Tennessee and Kentucky adjacent to the Big South Fork National Recreational Area. Johnson explained that because of the availability of the grant funds for the Hull-York project, tourists are now learning more about two of Tennessee’s most respected native sons.
“For example, the free tours at both sites are self-guided, yet there has been nothing to explain or interpret the experience,” Johnson said. “Now, three large information- and photo-packed interpretive wayside panels are strategically placed at Hull and eight more at York. Additionally, three push-button audio units broadcasting original explanatory messages are installed at each historic site.”
Both Pickett and Fentress Counties have suffered devastating industry closures in recent years, and due to the distance of these areas from rail, interstate roads, major commerce areas or commercially navigable waterways, the emphasis on development of tourism as an industry and the enhancement of tourist-related sites and businesses have become crucial to the economic survival of these communities.
“The York and Hull parks are geographically positioned so that travelers on U.S. 127 or U.S. 111 north of Interstate 40, especially those whose destination is the Big South Fork, could conveniently visit the one or both of the parks,” Johnson observed, adding, “Unfortunately until this project, there was no signage that let interstate travelers know that the York park existed.”
Johnson said while the ARC grant funded directional signage surrounding York park, it did not pay for signage from I-40. However, the Tennessee Department of Transportation agreed to erect signage at Exit 317 directing visitors to York park in support of the ARC grant project’s tourism development efforts.
“We used grant funds to enhance the sgtyork.org website with original videos and narrated slideshows to entice visitors to make the trip,” Johnson said. “We also made available for download a topographical tour map, tour brochure, lesson plan for educators, an original full-length interpretive script and a list of tour stop GPS coordinates.”
York’s bravery and selflessness in World War I elevated him to iconic status, while Hull is internationally recognized as the founding father of the United Nations.
“Through the sheer power of the history and legacy of each of these men –York and Hull – the Tennessee State Parks bearing their names draw tens of thousands of visitors each year to a relatively remote area of Tennessee’s Upper Cumberland,” Johnson said. “This is very good for the economy and confirms that these heroes are still worth remembering.”
For more information about visiting the parks, go to www.friendsofcordellhull.org or www.sgtyork.org.