News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Putnam County administration will begin the process of engineering and planning to replace the Patton Doll House Museum.
The museum, located along Highway 70, suffered irreparable damage during the March tornado, especially to the building’s foundation. FEMA will replace the building with $300,000 allocated for the project.
Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter wants to build a two-story building to house a lot of the county’s history, including archives, the Veteran’s Museum and the Doll Museum.
“One side of it was totally destroyed, and the foundation was damaged pretty bad,” Porter said. “The house actually shifted on the foundation, and engineers think it would cost more to try to fix it then to replace it.”
Porter said the county will work with Cookeville to add green space outside the building with a memorial for the tornado victims. This would be the second memorial park planned with the other near Hensley Drive.
“We want to do a memorial park, probably two of them we are going to be looking at,” Porter said. “But, that one being in the city limits of Cookeville. We want to do something for the tornado survivors and the ones that lost their lives during the tornado, those 19. We would like to do some kind of green space, memorial park there on that location, so it is in the city limits of Cookeville. And then, we are looking at another one that would be way out in the county towards Hensley Drive.”
Porter gained the authority to move forward with the two-story house during Monday’s Commission meeting. The county has an 18 month deadline to start drawing designs and open for bids.
The two acres of land the museum would be built out is parallel to Highway 70. Commissioner Jonathon Williams said the road will likely be expanded to five lines in the future and should be considered during the engineering process.
