MARLIN, TX — As we begin to move into fall.... one of the biggest stories of the summer for one Texas town, stands as a symbol of hope.
This year, lots of change in the Falls County seat of Marlin, arrived with a city council re-focused on better city services.
One piece of the puzzle proved to everyone, Marlin, like most of Texas, could accomplish, pretty much, anything it set it's mind to.
"He's talking about bringing a tournament in..." said Marlin City Manager, Cedric Davis.
Once again, the City of Marlin, has its "City Park".
Shortly after voters initiated a "changing of the guard" at city hall, Marlin's new leaders, looked for ways to show some fast progress, in a town that didn't seem as if it had any in years.
"Myself, the Mayor and Council were talking about different things that we needed to do. We knew we had roads, we knew we had to do the plumbing in the ground for the water system. and I had an idea and I said, do we have parks," said Davis.
Everyone agreed, a re-boot of Marlin's most popular place in days gone by, could become a symbol of the town's re-emergence.
Did nostalgia play a part? Maybe. but leaders here knew, in a town with limited finances, knew they could use "sweat equity" to return the park to it's former glory.
"They grew up playing in this park, somehow it just got forgotten about. and a lot of the growth just took over the park,"
Just one problem though.... all the years the park sat closed.... brought their own changes.
"So myself and the public works director came out here to take a look, and you couldn't even see any of this," said Davis.
You can still see the stalks from the base of huge tall reeds that formed a huge thicket around the park's most popular feature.
"He was like, there's no lake over there. I said no, there used to be a lake out here. so he hiked in the weeds and said, yes it is a lake over here," Davis recalled.
With that established, the work began to re-claim the park from years of overgrowth and weeds.
After numerous long days of whacking back at what nature had tried to re-claim, swings sculptures, picnic tables and other long-forgotten features began to regain their place here.... This historic picnic pavilion on the shore of the lake, once again welcomes families.
And a new addition....Frisbee golf, now lures new people here. along with a refurbished baseball and soccer field... just like the work that brought the falls back to this Falls County landmark.
How long did this re-transformation take? guess. because I bet you're wrong.
" It took us two weeks.... two weeks of continuous work," he said.
And the hard work doesn't end there for Marlin. One of its next projects will involve barricading the dam and spillway at the city lake. Once that's complete, Marlin plans to re-open the land around the lake for fishing hunting and nature walks, something that should happen, sometime next year.
