Leadership Putnam is a local civic organization affiliated with the Cookeville Chamber of Commerce.  Every year members of Leadership Putnam work on projects to better our local community.  These projects are designed to promote local business, industry and tourism in this area and to improve quality of life and resources in Putnam County.

This year’s community development project is a mural near the Leslie Town Centre along the new Tennessee Central Heritage Rail Trail, the bicycling and walking path that runs along the rail road tracks from the Cookeville Train Depot to Algood, TN.  

Our team chose to commission a mural to demonstrate community pride, produce an emotional response in viewers, and inspire other groups to turn abandoned or underused walls in Cookeville into spaces for creative expression and beautification.

We are interested in completing a project that will have impact on several different levels:  promote art, creativity, exercise, the rail history of Cookeville, and community involvement.

In addition to completing the mural for all the community to enjoy, we also hope we can provide a guideline for completing community art projects that we can share with other organizations in Cookeville to promote more art in public spaces.  We also hope that the mural will bring more people to visit and use the new trails, which will create more economic activity for the city of Cookeville.