Did you know that there is an official, state-designated area downtown called the Abilene Cultural District?
Or that Abilene received one of the first five cultural district designations in the state in 2010 alongside Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston?
To draw more attention to the cultural district and to highlight its boundaries, the Cultural Affairs Council applied for a cultural district grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts to add limestone pillars at the district’s four corners. Abilene received a $129,654 matching grant for the “Be Our Guest” project, and the results were unveiled Oct. 22 at a public celebration called “A Night with the Guardians” sponsored by H-E-B.
The four limestone pillars are located at N. 5th and Orange streets, N. 1st and Hickory streets, Pine and N. 7th streets, and across the street from Frontier Texas! at N. 1st. Each 18-foot pillar has the words “Cultural District” spelled down the side. They are lit at night.
Next to the pillar across from Frontier Texas! is an 8-foot, hand-carved stone relief of William Joyce’s Sanderson Mansnoozie from his “Guardians of Childhood” book series with outstretched arms welcoming people along with a Storybook Capital of America® sign. The Sandman stone relief was hand carved by Steve Neves, the Hardin-Simmons University professor and artist who has created many of the storybook sculptures downtown.
“The benefit of creating a sense of place is to reinforce a sense of ownership and pride in our beautiful downtown, which is experiencing a renaissance, and to provide a cultural destination for tourists,” said Lynn Barnett, executive director of the Cultural Affairs Council, which is an Abilene Chamber of Commerce affiliate.
The council raised a portion of the funds for the $330,000 project during Abilene Gives through its 501c3 arm, the Abilene Arts Alliance.
The Cultural Affairs Council has successfully applied for and matched other cultural district grants from the TCA that have helped build downtown into a tourism hotspot, including matching funds for the Adamson-Spalding Storybook Garden.
TXP Inc., an economic analysis and public policy consulting firm, prepared an Economic Impact Study of Cultural District Funding and confirmed that the TCA’s past investments in infrastructure has been critical to the success of the downtown Abilene Cultural District, which includes museums, performance venues, restaurants, retail and offices. The implementation of “Be Our Guest” will benefit all venues and businesses within the district and fuel the explosive economic and tourism growth, Barnett said.
By Sidney Schuhmann Levesque
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