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TYLER \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The Smith County Historical Society will need to find a new home after the City of Tyler decided not to renew their current lease. According to our news partner KETK, controversy has erupted on social media since the lease change as people ponder the fate of the historic building. Currently, the organization is housed at the Old Carnegie Library on 125 College Ave in Tyler. The historical society said they do not want to go anywhere.<\/p>\n
Since 1984, the society had an auto renewal lease every five years with the city. However, the city has reportedly chosen not to renew the lease so restorations can be done to the building.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153At no cost to the society, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been located there and at this point we were looking to let them know that we are not going to renew the lease,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Stephanie Franklin, Tyler deputy city manager, said.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153A lot of people don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t realize what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in here, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a treasure of information,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Smith County Historical Society board president Larry Wade said.<\/p>\n
According to the City of Tyler, relocation talks with the non-profit have been going on for about a year. This included a proposal to work together and help the historical society archive, store and catalog their property.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We could have our city library staff come in and help manage and maintain the building and staff it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Franklin said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most important is just supporting the ability for people to come in and out of the facility and then also help them archive all of the things that have been donated over the years that they are storing on the property and catalog, all of that. Then possibly even restore the museum aspect of the building.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Wade said they denied the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proposal.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were hoping that they would realize the value of us being here and we really hope that they will change their minds,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wade said.
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On Aug. 6 Wade said he received the notice that their five year lease would end Sept. 30.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say it came out of nowhere, but we were surprised because we were hoping that they would not want us to leave after a year,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wade said.<\/p>\n
The City of Tyler wants to renovate the Old Carnegie Library and make it a major downtown destination.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The city is looking at doing major renovations to downtown and the Carnegie Library is a historical icon and we want it to be utilized for all of the public,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Franklin said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whether that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s special events, conferences, getting the public in and out of it and restoring it back to museum and library as part of that. We just want to make sure that it is a property that everyone can have a part in and visit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
A common goal that the city and historical society share is having more visitors. However, there isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t common ground right now on how to get there.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think we are at a crossroads now and we are looking to the future,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Wade said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I hope that the city and the community will work with us, not against us, to realize that we are doing what we can.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
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Wade said the building houses artifacts from the 1800\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and is most afraid of the preservation in the moving process.<\/p>\n
The society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s board will discuss next steps during their Sept. 3 meeting.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think that what got sort of misunderstood was we were just kicking them out of the building and not wanting to be a partner alongside that transition,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Franklin said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really not the way we intended it to happen at all, and we hope we can be a part of that conversation moving forward.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Franklin said it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s possible for the society to work with the city after renovations in a different role. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TYLER \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The Smith County Historical Society will need to find a new home after the City of Tyler decided not to renew their current lease. According to our news partner KETK, controversy has erupted on social media since the lease change as people ponder the fate of the historic building. Currently, the organization is … Continue reading Tyler\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lease to Smith County Historical Society not renewed<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1348145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/08\/2024-08-20_035045-199x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1348143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 16:45:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/08\/2024-08-20_035045-199x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1348143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1348147,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348143\/revisions\/1348147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1348145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1348143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1348143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1348143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}