Musicians honored at Coke Ovens

By Kimberly McMillian

Correspondent

DUNLAP, Tenn. — Musicians and volunteers will be honored in a ceremony at the annual Coke Ovens Bluegrass Festival here at 10 a.m. CDT Saturday.

After nearly five years, volunteers completed a monument in the 82-acre Coke Ovens Park to honor deceased bluegrass and mountain musicians in the Sequatchie Valley, said John R. McWilliams, organizer of the effort.

All volunteers, laborers and others involved are encouraged to attend the dedication ceremony, McWilliams said.

“People need to come out and be present,” he said.

The 8-foot-high monument of concrete and granite will display hundreds of names that date “way back to the 1800s,” McWilliams said. A 7-foot guitar across the monument’s roof will represent its musical symbolism, he said.

Names have been sandblasted into the monument’s exterior, and there is space for more names in the future, he said.

The monument officially will be dedicated to the Sequatchie Valley Historical Association and maintained by that group after the ceremony, McWilliams said.

Jim Wyatt, president of the historical association, said all maintenance work will continue to be done by volunteers but the association will facilitate the landscaping, sandblasting of more names and various other needs.

Wyatt said requests have been made for more activities at the park that would attract more visitors and bolster Dunlap’s economy.

The association has plans to expand the park and is working on plans for a monument that would display “century-old equipment” honoring the farming, wood mill and whiskey still industries in the Sequatchie Valley, he said.

Wyatt said the history represented at Coke Ovens Park is “a treasure worth coming to see.”

Courtesy golf carts are available for the elderly or anyone who needs assistance.

Kimberly McMillian is based in Rhea County. Contact her at kdj424@bellsouth.net