Council Votes to Add Area West to Rt. 148
The Marion city Council Monday night accepted the grant of Egyptian Memorial Gardens Cemetery on Route 148 five miles from downtown Marion, and initiated steps to annex territory to include the cemetery and most of the Williamson County Airport nearby.
Councilmen voted to accept a deed to the cemetery property from Woodrow Dann, Carterville Rt. 2, who has operated for the last 17 years the perpetual care cemetery which was established in the 1930’s.
Conveyance of the cemetery included a $45,000 trust fund established in compliance with state requirements for privately operated cemeteries, and 10,000 unsold grave sites.
Dann said 1,200 persons are buried in the cemetery which was originally called East Lawn Memorial Gardens. Five thousand of the original 15,000 burial plots have been sold.
Coincident with acceptance of the cemetery property the council adopted an ordinance asking the circuit court to call an election on a proposal to annex to the city a strip of land roughly a quarter of a mile wide along the north side of Route 13, extending west from the present city boundary at the west edge of the S & S Machinery Co. property.
The airport terminal will be included in the proposed annexation, but some of the outlying area of the airport and the Egyptian Drive-In Theater on Route 148 as well as some other smaller properties between the present city limit and Route 148 will be omitted. Persons living in the area proposed to be annexed will vote in the special election. There are only a few families in the area affected.
Mayor Butler explained that the city officials felt that the area west of the city will be the scene of vast development in future years and should be a part of the city from the beginning of expansion.
At Monday night’s council meeting, the Mayor called attention to the election calendar providing for election of municipal officers next year. Petitions may be filed with the city clerk between Dec. 18 and Dec. 28 for the offices of mayor and city commissioner for a primary election to be held the last Tuesday in February. The final election will be April 15.
Sam’s Notes: A previous article published on the 14th indicated that this annexation would add more than 500 acres in property along the north side of New Route 13. The S & S Machinery Co. was west of the Skyline road intersection where it intersects New Route 13.
(Marion Daily Republican, November 18, 1974)