Lyons Better Hometown
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.
In 2003, Mrs. Luray Sharpe Reid, a Better Hometown board member and community advocate, donated to our program a collection of essays written by her father, Colonel T. Ross Sharpe. Col. Sharpe was a local lawyer who was “born and raised” on the Altamaha River. In the 1950’s he wrote a series of essays that was published in the local newspaper spotlighting life along the river and the many colorful personalities who called this area “home”. The Better Hometown Board and Mrs. Joy Lewis, then program director, recognized right away the potential for a folk-life play. The first play titled “Life on the River” was presented in the spring of 2005 at the Blue Marquee Theater in downtown Lyons. It opened to standing room only crowds and sold out all eight performances. A group of local musicians formed a blue grass band for the play, now known as the “River Rat Review Band” and they have quite a following now. Each year the Better Hometown Board and the Tales Advisory Committee select a different set of stories and hire a playwright to weave them into a play performed nine times each year in April.
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. In addition, our downtown has taken on a new face through façade 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, and restaurants. Our service oriented businesses include insurance agencies, financial services, printing, photography, an historic hotel, a fitness center, and hair salon.
Some of our past events and promotions have included a children’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 4th festivities, annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, and quilt show.
Future plans include a BBQ cook-off in the fall, a series of weekend workshops, reorganizing the Children’s Art Festival, and obtaining for our downtown area the designation of a historic district.