West Tennessee communities receive tourism enhancement grants

MCNAIRY COUNTY, Tenn. — The walls of an old McNairy County jail have seen decades of history. Not much has changed since the day it was built. But that is likely to change soon.

“They’ll actually get to go in through around the cell block, and they’ll see where the trustees actually did drawings on the wall. That’s not going to be touched,” says Jessica Huff, McNairy County Tourism Director. “They’re actually even prisoners names sketched out.”

Prisoners were kept in those very jail cells as far back as 1948, but officials said in about a year, it will be a renovated Experience Center for visitors.

This is thanks to Tennessee leaders who announced Thursday that 29 communities across the state will receive more than $1 million in tourism enhancement grants. One of those, McNairy County, has plans on revolving this new Experience Center around former Sheriff, Buford Pusser.

“Well, he was a sheriff from ’64 to ’70, and he is legendary because he really did campaign not to carry a gun,” said Tine Mullis, curator at the Sheriff Buford Pusser Home and Museum, “but he carried a stick.”

Officials hope this will heighten tourism in the county considering the amount of visitors they already receive looking to share in Sheriff Pusser’s hometown hero story which several films have been based on.

“This is one of our key assets here in McNairy County. It’s a story well-known across the United States. We have so many visitors coming in just to see his home,” said Huff.

“We have so many officers that come in here and say, ‘I went into law enforcement because of Buford Pusser,’ from all over the world,” said Mullis, “We have people from Australia, from Scotland, the Netherlands.”

Other local West Tennessee communities that also received Tourism Enhancement Grants include the cities of Dyersburg and Milan.