Community Corner
One Hundred Twenty Years of Tucker Memories
June 23 will mark Tucker's 120th anniversary.
Kathy and Harry Powell are the Tucker Team helping make our history, well, historical. She founded the 11 years ago, and he’s been President for the past five years. With over 100 members, and a big event planned for next month’s 120th Tucker Celebration, they have their hands full.
You can learn a lot by flipping through Tucker Historical Society’s many photo albums. “The majority of our archives come from local families,” says Harry Powell. “The idea is to bring all this together to allow folks who live here to understand how much history there is in this small town. We display our archives at , at Historical Society meetings at the , and on Browning Courthouse Day in October.”
“Meetings can be quite entertaining,” says Kathy Powell. “That’s where you learn all the great stories. We always try to have a guest speaker telling Tucker history, children or grandchildren remembering their memories of Tucker... One meeting we had the last person to work as the constable when the Browning Court House was still functioning.”
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The 110th anniversary of Tucker back in 2002 established three annual Tucker Historical Society traditions - the , The Tucker Historical Society , and held each October.
The Garden Tour brings hundreds of green thumb enthusiasts.
Find out what's happening in Tuckerwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
“This year’s Garden tour was really good, five private gardens, including three new gardens that were never on the tour," explains Kathy. “We always include the butterfly garden at the Browning Courthouse and this past Saturday the courthouse was open for people to explore during the garden tour.”
The Browning Courthouse, built in 1860, was relocated to the Tucker Rec Center in 1985 from its original location down the street at Fellowship Road. The building is the only one of its kind in the county.
Tucker Historical Society plans to present two new donations on June 23 - the original Post Office desk from 1892 used by Tucker’s first Postmaster, Alf Chewning, and an original church pew from the Tucker Congregational Church that once stood on Main Street in the late 1890s.
For an entertaining experience, spend some time at the Historical Society booth on Tucker Day. One old-timer spent three solid hours hanging around the booth, looking through photos and telling stories.
98-year-old Robbie Robinson raised his family here in Tucker, and founded Smiths Shoe Store on Main Street in March of 1956.
Do you have any stories about Tucker and its history? Tell us in the comments below.
“He was so funny, he cracked me up telling stories,” says Kathy. “He was delightful, and remembered lots of people’s shoe sizes! He was hilarious.”
I personally spoke with a few locals while milling about the popular Tucker Day booth. My favorite long-time local? Sally Sutton. (VIDEO)
“I’m going to drop dead in Tucker,” Sally says with a smile. “When we retired, people said are you coming home meaning South Carolina, we said we are home... Tucker’s home.”
Mark Hubener stopped by the Historical Society booth to entertain us as well, telling all kinds of stories about Main Street, the , and marrying his sweetheart. (VIDEO)
Come on out and entertain yourself on June 23 during Tucker’s 120th Celebration at Browning Courthouse starting at 10 a.m. in front of the Tucker Rec Center at 4898 Lavista Road.
For more information on how you can get involved with Tucker’s 120th anniversary, email: parks@tuckercivic.org or tuckerhistoricalsociety@gmail.com
About this column: Pam McNall writes a regular column for Tucker Patch about issues in the community.
