By rssfeeds-admin 
After 9 long months, suffering extensive damage from Hurricane Helene, community members have gathered at Living History Park once again.
“It feels really good, especially since it’s been closed for a while,” said Andrew Ronan.
“It’s nice to have it back open. It’s been closed for a while, and we always enjoy coming here on the 4th,” said Keith Ronan.
A few weeks ago, we got an update on storm cleanup from those running the park.
Parts of Living History are still closed due to safety reasons, but they made it their goal to reopen in time for their annual July 4th celebration.
“We enjoy this park. We’ve spent a lot of time here over the years, so it’s great to see it open again,” Pat Toohey said.
Park goers got enjoy reenactors showing them life during the colonial times, and a reading of the Declaration of Independence from Mayor Briton Williams.
“There are very few communities that have this kind of greenspace and shade, with the history of colonial times in a downtown,” said Williams. “This park is one of the gems of our community, and I’m so thankful for the staff and the Old Town Preservation to put this on.”
The park is now working to make the repairs needed.
“I know that one of our people met with FEMA last week and really went over everything. So, we’re hoping for the best when that comes back. They’re trying to figure that out,” said Living History Park VP Ding Denlinger.
Living History is self-sufficient, but they’re looking for help from the city.
The mayor says more discussions are needed.
“They don’t really give us the ability to do a whole lot. This is kind of their thing, they like to build stuff. But, we will definitely need to probably figure out what that looks like,” Williams said.
For other park goers, they say while they see more work to do, they couldn’t be happier to be back.
“I know they have a lot of work ahead of them, but I hope the funding will be there so they can get it done, and make this park what it’s supposed to be,” said Tony Watson.
“We’re hoping that maybe we can change their mind to show them how important the park is to this community, and the Southeast, and it’s nationally known,” Denlinger said.
While Living History Park is working to get fully reopened, the park does not have a timeline at the moment for when that can happen.
Discover more from RSS Feeds Cloud
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.