Residents want new community identity of pride
Renaming Preston Hollow Road after gospel singer Rowena Smith isn’t only a memorial, it’s a move toward revitalizing the St. Rose community.
Once the scene of several crimes, including murder, the area has now become a symbol of hope embodied by Rowena Smith as a citizen of national celebrity. She also was passionate about preserving the area’s history, a legacy that will now live on in her name as her community works to restore the area’s identity as Elkinsville-Freetown from its current name of St. Rose.
It’s why the Elkinsville Historical Restoration Association successfully got a historic marker bearing the area’s former name erected in October, an effort that took years to get done and required extensive documentation.
“We’ve challenged ourselves as a community to guide and direct,” said Association President Richard “Ricardo” Smith. “We’re looking to work daily to achieve a direction – community enlightenment. We’re getting community buy-in with community, parish government and local businesses that would help us move forward.”
Smith believes it means going back to the community’s founding origins.
It’s beginnings are significant with Elkinsville encompassing two churches well over 100 years old – Mount Zion Baptist Church and Fifth African Baptist Church – and at some time the area’s name being Freetown.
“Freed people of color bought and developed that land during that time, and started a community with other freed people of color,” Smith said. “I think that’s a monumental task and I think it’s worth being highlighted and never forgotten.”Association Vice President Dwayne Harris said the marker instills “a sense of hope and prosperity to know where we came from and will progress in the future.”
Palmer Elkins was a freed slave and business owner that purchased more than 100 acres of land to develop between River Road and Airline Highway in the 1800s, Harris said. Those areas he developed right now are called 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th streets, but all four streets are again called Elkinsville.
When the post office came to the area, Harris said it bore the name St. Rose and over time the area’s original name faded away.
Since 2008, the Elkinsville Historical Restoration Association has remained dedicated to restoring the historical name and community.
“It feels great,” Harris said. “It feels we, as a community and organization, is doing something to take our neighborhood to the next level.”
According to Smith, “We’re going back to our founding origins and the people who founded the area and purchased the land and developed the community. The latter translation is renaming of the community as St. Rose as the town, but not the community, which is Elkinsville. It started as this and it never changed.”
In 2009, then Councilman Larry Cochran supported these efforts by helping establish a Citizen Action Team of residents with the goal of restoring the area’s historic roots.
One of them was to revitalize Elkinsville, said Cochran who is now the parish president.
“In partnership with the St. Rose Baptist Church, we had a youth group come in from out of town and do some work that included cutting grass, painting and cleaning,” Cochran said. “At that time, residents established the Elkinsville Historic Restoration Association with the focus solely on that area. They are now a nonprofit with the goal of revitalizing Elkinsville, working with youth and seniors in the area and establishing a community center. Councilwoman [Marilyn} Bellock, myself and members of my administration have been meeting with them to see how the parish can help them achieve their goals.”
Smith is also determined to restore the area’s sense of community and pride. He said it’s not enough to remember it, but to relive it.
“Just bringing back the name might bring back the community, as well as its identity,” he said. “We believe it could bring back the pride. When you bring back the pride, you’re engaging the community in a positive way, which is what we’re doing as the Elkinsville Historic Restoration Association.”
Smith’s father, John Smith, sees it strongly in remembering Rowena Smith, whom recently died, as a symbol of pride that might help the community overcome its issues with crime and economic struggles. As the mover behind getting the road named after Rowena, John Smith said there was no doubt in his mind about the need to memorialize one of the community’s greatest citizens, calling her a “gospel legend” known locally, regionally and nationally.
Ricardo Smith agreed the turnaround is happening.Land has been set aside for a community center, although a mobile home is the likely current structure planned for the site based on available funds. But he is confident a building for the site will come.
Regardless of its structure, Smith envisions it as the kind of central meeting place a community needs so its people can move forward together in activities like gatherings and afterschool programs. And from there, he hopes the center will serve as a “beacon of hope” for people there and the surrounding areas.
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