For The Daily Southerner
TARBORO —
In celebration of the 250th Birthday of the Town of Tarboro, the public is invited on a tour – the Panola Heights Memory Walk next month.
The walk will be on Saturday, Sept. 4 beginning at 1 p.m. at Clark Park on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
This event is co-sponsored by the Town of Tarboro 250th Celebration Committee.
This is a mobile tour, organized by Shirley O. Mays, a long-time resident of Panola Heights in east Tarboro. It will feature five historical tour stops within the community:
• United Manor Courts
• St. Paul Baptist Church.
• St. Paul AME Zion Church Memorial site
• site of the C.M. Dancy Store/home of Mary Kate Crawley
• and Pattillo A+ Elementary School.
Two tour transport vans will be provided by the Town of Tarboro. Requests have been made for local church and business participation to provide a van or bus, and tourists may also travel by private cars.
These vans will be staffed with tour guides telling the history of a variety of locations along the tour route. There will be history presenters at each featured tour stop.
Those attending this historical tour will receive a journal of treasured memoirs and heritage facts provided by families raised within the Panola Heights community.
The commemorative journal traces an historical trail of past businesses, entrepreneurs, churches, schools and ancestors instrumental in producing the community of today.
“I’m doing this to get some interest in east Tarboro,”said Mays, 82.”Let people know about some of the history of east Tarboro.”
Mays, a member of the 250th Celebration Committee, has been working on the plans for the tour and the journal for more than a year.
The journal, titled “Historical Panola Heights Commemorative Journal” is only available to the tourists and partners of this event.
There is no charge and light refreshments will be served at Clark Park following the tour.
