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Another parade, the Sesquicentennial Parade, will be included in the downtown festivities at 4 p.m. on Oct. 20. Local churches, schools, businesses and Scout troops are encouraged to assemble floats and participate. County commissioners will serve as grand marshals, and commercial floats will not be included.
Sylva town board member Maurice Moody is heading up the Heritage Parade, and information and registration forms are available at Sylva's City Hall.
Jeff Carpenter, Jackson County's recreation director and chairman of the Sesquicentennial Committee, is in charge of the Oct. 20 parade. For more information, or to register, call him at 586-6333.
Other planned activities during the downtown festival will be a fashion show featuring period dress, presentation of an official county flag, checkers and other "old-timey" games and contests. The day will also feature performances of traditional mountain music and food and craft vendors.
Creation of the county flag will be funded by the Jackson County Arts Council, and the flag's design will be chosen through a countywide competition. Information on the flag design contest has been sent to all county schools and is available through Perry Kelly, arts council president. Kelly can be reached at 293-5458.
Local chainsaw sculptor Fred Bauknecht, who recently made a wooden eagle sculpture for Fairview School, has agreed to donate his time to create a sesquicentennial carving that will be permanently displayed. Bauknecht will construct the piece as part of the downtown celebration.
A sesquicentennial time capsule will be buried at the Justice Center Thursday, Oct. 25, with the assistance of local schoolchildren. The date for the capsule's burial was pushed back from Oct. 16 to allow the inclusion of newspaper coverage of the downtown events.
Commemorative T-shirts, featuring the official sesquicentennial logo, are currently on sale for $10 each and are available at Jackson's General Store, Blackrock Outdoor Co., and the Jackson County Recreation and Parks Department. Proceeds from T-shirt sales will help fund the downtown celebration.
Volunteers are needed to help with all aspects of the monthlong celebration. Anyone interested in serving on a committee or helping at one of the planned events is asked to call Carpenter at 586-6333.
Jackson County was formed in 1851 from Macon and Haywood counties. Its government was organized in March 1853 during a two-day session at the Daniel Bryson homeplace in Beta. A monument was erected last fall along U.S. 23-74 near the Cope Creek intersection to mark the site of the county's first courthouse.
Jackson County is named for Andrew Jackson, a Democrat war hero who won an important victory over the British at New Orleans in 1815 and was twice elected president of the United States. The original county seat was named for Daniel Webster, a prominent Whig orator and statesman who died a year before the 1853 formation of Jackson County's government.
Webster was designated the county seat and served as the county's hub until 1913 when citizens voted to move their seat of government to Sylva.
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