Picture Troup through Book It! Buffet Saturday

Sheriff John Langston carries the flag and leads the parade for the Troupe Fair in 1911.

Can you picture Troup in the early 1900s or the mid 1940s? At the Book It! Buffet on Saturday, April 19, in the Troup Municipal Library you will have a chance to picture those years through an exhibit of photographs of days gone by. The pictures on display will cover a lot of history, but this sampling will be only a small part of the hundreds of pictures being considered for inclusion in the new history of Troup book.

The Book It! Buffet is a fund-raiser to help underwrite the publication of the book. The tickets cost $10 for adults and $5 for children under 12. Guests will get a lot for their money. In addition to the photographic exhibit, there will be laden buffet tables with a large variety of dishes, word sketches from the book, a contest, a drawing, and other interactive fun for the audience. Best of all, some lucky person will be able to claim a free histor y of Troup when the book is published.

Carole Wilson is in charge of the food for the Book It! Buffet. This event is a come and go affair. The doors open at 5:30 and the party is over at 8 p.m.

The Seale Hotel in a picture from the early 1900s. Later the Seale Hotel would be called the Allen Hotel.

Deborah Burkett and Bobby Neel are creating the exhibit about the history of Troup using photographs, letters, and maps collected for the book. Mildred Steele and Navoleine Roddy are planning the program and other entertainment that promise to be engaging and fun for the guests.

The Friends of the Troup Library and the Troup Genealogy/Historical Society have been working for well over two years on the research and collection of facts, as well as memoirs, letters, documents, and pictures that reveal the way Troup started and the way it changed over time from 1850 through about 1950. It is the intention of the committee in charge of the book to have the book ready for everyone's Christmas gift list this year.

Though writing a good history of Troup and preparing the photographs to illustrate it has taken longer and has been more difficult than the committee expected, the members -- and the others who have helped them -- all agree that the finished book will be well worth the effort.

Scene of crew for the movie Strike It Rich starring Rod Cameron and Benita Granville. This movie was filmed in Troup in 1948.

Members of the committee include Mildred Steele, Deborah Burkett, Mary Ann Coney, Bobby Neel and Navoleine Roddy.

For more information, call the Troup Municipal Library at 903-842-3101.