MURFREESBORO, TN – The Murfreesboro Street Department began the demolition of Longhorn Liquor on NW Broad Street on Monday, a long-awaited measure that clears the way for daylighting Town Creek. For those who have lived in Rutherford County for 30 years or longer, you may recall that the liquor store was originally home to a Shoney’s Restaurant before the restaurant built a new location to the left of the original structure. Shoney’s then moved next door into their new building, and a Tex-Mex eatery opened at the old location. After the Tex-Mex restaurant closed, Longhorn Liquor converted the facility into a retail liquor store.

Focusing on the unearthing of Town Creek, the project calls for the removal of concrete culverts that have contained the stream for decades, flowing between the Murfree Spring Wetland and Lytle Creek. This daylighting project helps to revitalize the downtown area. By restoring the underground stream to its natural condition, the city will construct an attractive linear park along NW Broad Street between S. Church Street and Cannonsburgh Village. The waterway was put underground over 50 years ago as a way to decrease flooding in an area historically known as The Bottoms.

Town Creek is an underground stream that originates in Murfree Spring at the Discovery Center and flows to Cannonsburgh Village before emptying into Lytle Creek. The completion of the Town Creek Phase II project will provide walking and biking trail connectivity from the Discovery Center and Murfree Springs to Cannonsburgh Village and the Greenway Trail System.

Previously, multiple buildings that housed a used car dealership, hair salon, sandwich shop, copy machine business, and automotive mechanic were demolished to make way for the new park. This past November, engineering and environmental consultants from Griggs & Maloney oversaw the removal of four gas tanks that had been buried along the roadway since the 1940s, when a gas station was part of the landscape over 80 years ago. After the gas station closed, the tanks were filled with sand, and upon removal, proved to hold not only sand but also years of rainwater. According to a release from the City of Murfreesboro, “Getting the sand-filled tanks out of the ground posed a challenge for excavators due to their sheer weight. It took a couple of days to remove all four tanks.”

Past News: The Healing of our Ecosystem in Daylighting Town Creek – Click HERE