Main Street Parades

Over the years, Downtown Waynesville has hosted a variety of festivals, events, and parades. In 1936, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt rode along Main Street with much fanfare on his way to the official opening of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Shortly thereafter, Waynesville erected a much loved sign over Main Street at the corner of Depot Street proclaiming its role as the eastern entrance to the Park. Although this sign no longer straddles Main Street, Waynesville continues to bring many visitors to the Great Smoky Mountains (and vice versa).

There was much to celebrate in the 1940s as well. The brutality of World War II had come to an end and most troops had returned home. Electricity was spreading into the more rural parts of the county, building upon the infrastructure that helped to illuminate streetlights and public buildings fifty years earlier. And businesses such as Champion Fibre, Wellco, Unagusta Furniture, and Dayton Rubber were expanding their industries and output, creating more jobs in the process.

While our subjects of celebration may have changed, the way we celebrate remains the same. You can still see parades and events like these take place in Haywood County today!

Photographs courtesy of Henry Foy, The Haywood County Library Digital Collection