Over 40 vendors will again gather their local history, artifacts and memorabilia for the community to enjoy On Jan. 18. The event will be held at the Soddy Daisy High School in the Commons area.
SDMHA will have at least 60 tables full of history. Genealogy, coal mining relics, Civil War relics, local American Indian artifacts and just lots of local history will be on display. Local Civil War collector Charlie Harris will have some of the Confederate cave rifles on display that were found on Lookout Mountain in the 1920’s.
He had spent many years trying to collect all nine of the guns. Also, we will host Richard Cook from Oak Ridge who has written a book about the Manhattan Project. Many locals worked at Oak Ridge either during or after World War II.
Officials said, "The Soddy, Daisy & Montlake Historical Association (SDMHA) is proud of our local history and we want to show it to everyone who will come and spend some of their day with us. If you have an interest in the local history of Soddy, Daisy, or the mountain communities of Mowbray, Montlake and Flattop their unique history will all be included."
Do you have anything we might find of interest? If so, please bring it along. We will have people who might be able to assist you in determining what your item maybe. Old photo from these areas? Bring these along as well. We will have a printer on site and can copy any photo so you can take your photo home with you. We try to collect these items for our museum. The Historical Association opened a museum in the old Soddy Bank building in July of 2017. We continue to strive to display new photos as they are brought to us. We make changes in the museum following the History Fair and we will reopen on Friday April 3, 2020. If you have a collection of local memorabilia, we would like for you to come and be a part of this event with a display. Also, again we will host Tracy Knauss, “The Photo Doctor” from Chattanooga. If you have issues with an old photo - torn, discolored, and blurry or any other problem with a photo “The Photo Doctor” can eliminate the problem.
We have people coming from as far away as Nashville, Atlanta and Knoxville to visit where they may have grown up or explore where their family is from. We will have genealogist and volunteers on site that do nothing but assist our visitors.
The hours for the History Fair will be from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Soddy Daisy High School on Sequoyah Road. We do ask for a $3 donation from each adult not a member of the Historical Association. Students 7 years to 18 years of age may enter with a $2 donation and children under 7 are encouraged to come and there is no charge. But we ask that they are accompanied by a parent or guardian. Information on becoming a SDMHA member can also be found at the fair along with a series of unique door prizes that will be available to win for a small donation.