Lyons Ga City Government

The City of Lyons was designated a Better Hometown in 1999. Our community provided great support to launch this program into action and 10 years of revitalization efforts are evident. The City of Lyons and the Toombs County Board of Commissioners continue to support our efforts by providing operating funds that we are able to supplement with several fund raising events.  Our most successful endeavor, Tales from the Altamaha, a Georgia folk-life play provides great family entertainment and historical information about our area’s earliest settlers and has provided the funds for many other projects. Visit the Tales from the Altamaha page for additional information.

Lyons Better Hometown has been able to purchase six downtown properties through its non-profit 501(c) 3 status. Three of these properties have been resold to downtown investors who have completed extensive renovations.  These include an old movie theater that has been turned into a performing arts center, an original 1905 hotel that continues to operate as a hotel and also houses several retail shops, and a primary corner property has become an art gallery and an up-scale restaurant. The other three properties provide rental income to the program to help support our projects. In addition, our downtown has taken on a new face through facade grants, privately funded full and partial building renovations, and a mural project and landscape project carried out by a group of local high school students called “Hometown Heroes.”  Grants provided us with the funds to renovate the Better Hometown Office and to plant trees and purchase planters, benches and decorative lamp posts that adorn our downtown sidewalks reconstructed with a combination of new concrete and brick. A series of decorative seasonal banners also contributes to the beauty of our downtown.

Downtown Lyons now has a mix of retail, including antiques, a grocery store, hardware, books, gifts and restaurants.  Our service oriented businesses include insurance agencies, financial services, printing, photography, an historic hotel, a fitness center, and hair salons.

Some of our past events and promotions have included a kid’s art festival, a performing arts series in the renovated Blue Marquee Theater, a local chili cook-off, a local Saturday market, sings in the park, July 4^th festivities, annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, and quilt show.

Future plans include a BBQ cook-off in the fall – The Real Squeal: Lyons Barbeque & Bluegrass Festival (see The Real Squeal page), a series of weekend workshops, reorganizing the art festival to include all ages and obtaining for our downtown area the designation of a historic district.