All New Tourism for DeKalb County

On Sunday my wife and I went to the ribbon cutting ceremony at the all new Northeast Agri Business Center in Rainsville. This facility is something we can all be very proud of and promises to be the beginning of some all new entertainment for us, but will also provide an all new source of tourism to the county and a new source of revenue for our cities and towns.
In looking at the history of tourism in DeKalb County we have been a leisure tourism destination for more than 100 years. Our first tourists came to beat the summer heat from Birmingham and other places where the mountains provided a little relief. The Mentone Springs Hotel opened in 1884 to accommodate tourists coming to the Inn’s healing springs. In the 20’s came the Mentone Inn. We had summer camps opening, and cabins being built as second homes. Other early attractions were Sequoyah Caverns and Cloudmont Golf and Ski Resort and Shady Grove Dude Ranch. In 1939 DeSoto State Park opened its doors to camping and cabins and a little later the lodge. On Sand Mountain, Buck’s Pocket became a state park in the 60’s. Later came the group Alabama. They have been a tourist attraction for three decades now. In the early 90’s Little River Canyon became a National Preserve. In recent years many more rental cabins, B&B’s and hotels have been added to our area. We’ve added some fun county festivals along the way in many of our towns to attract tourists and locals to a day or two of special entertainment. Throughout all this time DeKalb County has remained primarily a leisure tourism county using our scenic beauty and friendly fun small towns as our draw.
It is only now that we have a new tourism draw that is event based. The new Northeast Agri Business Center in Rainsville is a state of the art Agri Center that will be attracting a wide variety of one, two and three day events. All of these have a regional scope and are sure to attract overnight visitors from all over our southeast region. Many of these events will take place at night leaving visitors the daytime hours to eat, shop, tour our attractions, parks, towns, museums and all will add dollars to our local economy. Many of the tourists coming to these events will be new visitors to DeKalb County. It is our desire to show our visitors the upmost in southern hospitality so when they go home they will tell their friends about us and from that we will continue to grow. It is very exciting that in these difficult economic times we are getting this wonderful uplifting boost to our economy. To learn more about the new Northeast Agri Business Center visit their website at www.nealagribusinesscenter.com.

John Dersham