Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

As the year changed nearly 90 years ago, Coffee County found itself busy with preparations for the upcoming centennial celebration that was to be held in May of that same year.

Plans were being made, ideas were being shared and locals were bustling with excitement to celebrate the 100th birthday of their home county.

The festivities were named the Coffee County Century of Progress and included a whole week’s worth of celebrations from May 23 through the 30th.

It began on a Saturday with an opening ceremony that included an address from Memphis’s Vice Mayor at the time Clifford Davis. The celebration also included addresses from other officials across the state like Senator K.D. McKellar and Commissioner of Education Walter D. Cocking.

Other programs that occurred throughout the week were a Coffee County Pageant and baby show, as well as an “Old Fiddler’s Contest” and a horse show.

There was also an exhibit hall that was set up to display “articles one hundred years old or older.”

According to an article written by the Centennial Celebration Chairman Homer L. Higgs that was published in the Manchester Times on June 5, 1936, more than 75,000 people came and enjoyed the program.

Higgs moved to Manchester when he was sent by the Farm Credit Administration to be their representative at a new district office in the city a few months after the inauguration of the New Deal.

Before approaching the Chamber of Commerce about the centennial celebration, Higgs was the driving force behind Manchester’s first big Independence Day celebration in 1935.

Higgs passed away suddenly in 1938 and was noted for his contributions to both the Fourth of July program and the centennial celebration.

A Times writer noted in June of 1938 that Higgs after the centennial program “had established himself in the hearts of all those who believed in the future of our county as the man who would put us on the map.”

To commemorate the once in a lifetime milestone, Higgs and the Centennial Celebration Committee decided to hold a contest to write an official song for Coffee County.

A notice was published in the Sept. 19, 1935 issue of the Times that the committee was looking for submissions of a song written about Coffee County that portrays a true setting of the county and “what it means to every native.”

The notice suggested that the songwriters set their songs to “easy, lively music” such as the tune “Brighten the corner where you are,” a hymn published in the early 1910s that was later recorded by Ella Fitzgerald.

A cash prize of $5 was awarded to the author of the winning song, which would also be published in the “Coffee County Century Book,” a commemorative booklet that was distributed in advance of the centennial festivities.

16 total entries were submitted to Higgs by Thanksgiving of 1935, the deadline for entry, and were judged by the song committee that he assembled made up of A.A. Williams, Judge Robert L. Keele, B.B. McMahan, Mrs. John Jared, Annie Guy Wiseley, Mrs. R.E. Dillon and Okada Gilmore.

The committee’s prerogative was to determine the most “singable” song.

Of the 16 entries, five were selected to be finalists. Coffee Countians were then tasked with voting for their favorite song. Votes were cast by dropping off a signed piece of paper that read “I vote for No.__” with he blank filled in with the corresponding number to the song selected from a list published in the Times on December 12 of 1935.

Entries included “Oh! Let Us Sing of Coffee County” sung to the tune of “Carry Me Back to Ol’ Virginny,” “My Dear Old Coffee County” sung to the tune of “Old Time Religion,” “Coffee County Ever” sung to the tune of the Vanderbilt University Alma Mater and an untitled song set to the music of “Home on the Range.”

Announced in the January 23, 1936 edition of the Times, the winning song was “My Coffee County, Tennessee” penned by J.L. McAliley (spelled McAlily in certain articles.)

McAliley, originally from Doyle, Tennessee, was the pastor at Manchester Baptist Church (now known as First Baptist Church Manchester) from 1924 until 1940 where he preached every third Sunday morning and night of the month.

He was also noted in the Times to have helped greatly increase Sunday School attendance numbers during his tenure.

McAliley’s song was written to the tune of “Aloha, Farewell to Thee,” a Hawaiian folk song that was used throughout the 20th century in films and television shows set in Hawaii, maybe most famously by Elvis Presley in the 1961 film Blue Hawaii.

The winning song was played at various events leading up to Coffee County’s centennial celebration.

One unnamed contributor in the April 9, 1936 edition of the Times encouraged the public to pick up a copy of the song from local drug stores after they had heard it at a closing exercise at Noah Junior High School.

“We want you to hear it in order to fully appreciate the sentiment of words and music,” they noted. “It is wonderful in both.”

The song was also performed at a luncheon that was attended by 100 Coffee County hostesses and guests complimenting Memphis’s Judge Camille Kelley, noted as “Manchester’s most distinguished Centennial visitor,” at the Manchester Hotel on the second to last day of the Coffee County Century of Progress celebration.

Not much else is mentioned in the archives about the song or its prominence coming out of the celebration of Coffee County’s 100th birthday. It will keep its place in the history books waiting for an interested community leader or a curious musician to bring it back to life.