Local tourism officials fixing up Lincoln exhibits, offering glimpse at old Jax post office this week

By Gary Scott on May 2, 2016 at 1:01pm

It’s expected to be a busy week this week for tourism officials in Jacksonville as they celebrate the third annual National Travel and Tourism Week.

The Jacksonville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is offering site tours at local hotels today. Executive director Brittany Henry, speaking on “What’s On Your Mind?” on WLDS this morning added volunteers will be doing cleanup at the city’s “Looking For Lincoln” exhibits tomorrow.

“We’re looking for deterioration, make sure there’s no vandalism to these signs. A lot of these wayside exhibits are still under warranty, so if there’s anything that needs to be reported on, then we can get them fixed so they’re up-to-par when our tourists do come see them in the community,” says Henry. “So, you might see a lot of us running around in National Travel and Tourism color red.”

Coming up on Thursday, the visitors bureau will host a mayoral proclamation for Tourism Week at 5 p-m at the bureau office at 310 East State Street. Last year, the first-ever Friend of Tourism award went to Ron Gray, the organizer of the Grierson Days Civil War re-enactment.

Plus…

“The Morgan County Historical Society will have a couple people staffed across the street at the old post office, and we’re going to let people kind of peek their head in and take a sneak peek at some of the work that’s been done on that building in hopes that we can show people the work that’s been done on the old post office, because one day, we’re hoping it’s going to house a museum that we’ve been trying to work on for many years,” she says.

In addition, the CVB is offering “Be a Tourist In Your Own Hometown” passports once again this year, which allow people to enter a contest for a $100 chamber check.

You can hear the full interview with Henry by clicking below: