News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Fentress County is creating signage to promote art, community, and local culture.
County Chamber Executive Director Jacob Rosenbaum said the workshop was sponsored by the Tennessee Arts Commission. Rosenbaum said locally trained facilitators conducted the workshop with a focus on utilizing their creative economy.
“Actually in smaller communities the creative economy, your artisans, craftsmen, artists, those kind of people actually have significant impact on your local economy,” Rosenbaum said. “And they add to your local culture. They’re part of what makes your community unique.”
Rosenbaum said Fentress County within the county there are dozens of other smaller communities. He said basically every ridge, every hill top, every land feature has a name.
Rosenbaum said the workshop decided what they wanted to do was highlight these smaller communities and get people off the beaten path.
“There will be four large artistically rendered signs located in Jamestown, Allardt, Pall Mall and Clark Range,” Rosenbaum said. “And they will serve as way points. So you will find those larger signs and they will direct you to the signs in the smaller communities in the county.”
Rosenbaum said it will be part of a scavenger hunt type of project.
“The name or the project is Finding Fentress,” Rosenbaum said. “And people will be able to find these large map signs and start their journey.”
Rosenbaum said each individual community sign will be in the same shape but decorated according to scenes or symbols relevant to the community.
“So we’re going to get high school kids involved and they’ll learn about the history of their area and decorate the signs,” Rosenbaum said.
Rosenbaum said Fentress County has hundreds of thousands of people who come to visit the parks every year.
“And our goal is to entice them to get out into the rest of the county to see what makes our community unique and hopefully patronize the local businesses in those communities,” Rosenbaum said.
