95 Piccadilly – April 10, 2025
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By Shane Gilreath
As the weather continues to vacillate back and forth, and spring battles the million and one famed Southern winters, it’s an interregnum season that often leads me to reflect on change. As the spurts of warmth bring the earth to life, it somehow has a way of doing the same for me, but with the weather unseasonably cool, I sat down, bundled and shivering, and watched a documentary on the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. I don’t know if it’s merely the history lover in me or my many years in preservation and tourism, but the colonial city has always been an inspiration. It’s a remarkable feat, and more than I could have imagined, the documentary made me wistful and reflective. As anyone who worked with me in Historic Stearns will tell you, I’ve always held Colonial Williamsburg as an example of what could be. It’s an embodiment of the genius and ingenuity it takes to build a tourism mecca from remnants of the past, and how it can both successfully suspend time while co-existing in the modern era. There’s an art to it, and, in Virginia, they allow themselves to leave the portal open. It’s an extraordinary thing to see, and, in that regard, there’s a lot that can be learned from those who trod these steps before us. Passion and persistence, among them.
Despite being a different era than I re-lived in Stearns, Kentucky, each time I have visited “Revolutionary America,” I’ve left with a stronger and stronger pull to such ingenious innovation. Dr. W.A.R. Goodwin, whose brainchild was the restoration, is quoted as saying, “shut your eyes and see the gladsome ghosts who once made these places their home. You can learn to call them back. You can train yourself to hear what they have to say.” I found his words profound. I might well have uttered them myself. Many times, I’ve listened to those ghosts, and it remains my belief that anyone in historic tourism – be in Colonial Williamsburg, Historic Stearns, or Timbuktu – has a responsibility to both tell and preserve their stories, as well as their dwellings, so that, should you believe in actual ghosts, they wouldn’t skip in a beat in recognition.
When I began the Stearns event “Night at the Museum,” it was inspired by the film franchise, but it existed both as a means of storytelling and to test living history, which was always my aspiration, and, I think, should be the goal, within reason, of historic tourism. I embrace this belief with just cause. This is why: a lesson I learned both at Colonial Williamsburg and, perhaps, more surprising, at Cumberland Falls, from the long-ago days when Angela Carr and I created the falls’ “Hot Southern Nights” week and their ‘Moonbow and Magnolia Ball.’ Over the years, I’ve greeted thousands upon thousands of people and hundreds of groups, but on the day of the Magnolia ball, decked in period costume, one couldn’t help but notice the atmosphere change for visitors. You can talk and talk and talk, and you will do that a lot in tourism, but when you’re costumed, it’s a very different, much more immersive experience. You are a living, breathing embodiment for that visitor. On the shallow side, tourists suddenly want to pose with you and take your picture. I’ve done that, too. Both sides of it. If you do it right, you bolster a visitor’s experience, which runs parallel to another lesson that I learned from the late-Danny Brown, who was the long-time Cumberland Falls Park Manager; a lesson that anyone who’s worked under me will have heard me repeat ad nauseam. Having breakfast with Mr. Brown one morning, he asked me – a young, green whippersnapper, not long out of college – what my goals were, to which I responded to work in public relations or marketing for the parks. “You already do,” he responded, not missing a beat. “Anyone who works here already works in public relations.” No need to ponder. It was immediately true, and it’s a belief that Colonial Williamsburg has also long held, and, thanks to Mr Brown, me too. It’s a part of their success. It’s a part of the success of any tourism entity.