By MICHAEL BOYLAN
Weekend Editor

Railroads built this country. As transportation allowed for people to travel from town to town and state to state, this nation grew up and out.

This weekend, the town of Tyrone will have its annual Founders Day festival, celebrating the railroad workers who settled and founded the town.

Originally inhabited by the Creek Indians and then by Irish and Scottish railroad workers, Tyrone was once known as Hopeful. Hopeful had an academy, a church and a number of small settlements. Eventually, the railroad workers named it Tyrone, after the town in Ireland that the region reminded them of.

“If you follow the railroad,” said county historian Carolyn Cary, “you'll find that many of the towns share names with towns in Ireland. Towns like Fife, Shakerag, and Tyrone.”

Tyrone became an incorporated town Aug. 8, 1911. The town celebrates its founding, settling and incorporation during the third weekend of every September. The festival includes a road race, adult and middle school dances, parades, entertainment, a beauty pageant and a carnival.

Festivities for Tyrone Founders Day kick off with a carnival beginning at 6 p.m Thursday. The carnival will run 6-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday at Shamrock Park. One-price tickets for Thursday and Sunday are on sale for a limited time. The tickets are $9 for unlimited rides. Call Cathy Knowles at 770-487-1790 or Tyrone Town Hall at 770-487-4038.

Friday, there will be a middle school dance, chaperoned by the Founders Day Committee and the Tyrone Kiwanis Club, 7-10 p.m at Shamrock Park under the big tent. There will be dancing and karaoke available during the dance.

Saturday's activities begin with a road race at 8 a.m. The race will take runners from Castlewood Road to Briarwood Road, to Palmetto Road and to Arrowood Road. The walkers will begin their circuit five minutes after the runners have departed. The Shamrock Strut will be at 10 a.m. as festival goers strut their stuff around Shamrock Lake. The parade will begin at 2 p.m. on Senoia Road and will go to Castlewood Road.

Also at 2 p.m. Saturday is the Sweetheart Beauty Pageant, the three-month-old through 6-year-old categories. The pageant will be at Sandy Creek High School.

The evening events begin at 7 p.m with an adult dance at Shamrock Park. Also at 7 p.m. will be the 7- through 18-year-old portion of the Sweetheart Beauty Pageant. At 9:30 p.m., there will be fireworks over Shamrock Park.

Both Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Shamrock Park, there will be arts and crafts exhibits, commercial booths and food vendors. Entertainment will run from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. both nights at Shamrock Park as well. Sunday's main events will be a Hula Hoop contest at 1 p.m., an ice cream eating contest at 2 p.m. and a talent show at 3 p.m. All three events will take place at Shamrock Park.

There will be no shortage of things to do in Tyrone this weekend and it is nice to see. The community will be outside and together, celebrating the many things that brought the town and its citizens together so many years ago.

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