You’ve no doubt seen the historic photos at local restaurants, but do you know why North Military and Depot Streets in the city of Lawrenceburg were decked out in their patriotic finest 87 years ago this week?

From June 6-8, 1937, the Tennessee organization of Spanish-American War Veterans held their annual encampment at Lawrenceburg.

The Spanish-American War, which lasted only sixteen weeks in 1898, was sparked when the USS Maine exploded while at anchor in Havana, Cuba. Newspapers practicing yellow journalism stoked the event into a crisis. War was declared on April 21, and the United States sent troops to Spanish-held territories in the western hemisphere.

Theodore Roosevelt famously resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to organize and lead a volunteer cavalry regiment in Cuba where he fought alongside former Confederate general Joe Wheeler. When the war officially ended in December, Spain granted independence to Cuba and the U.S. annexed the former Spanish possessions of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Filipino insurgents waged a bloody, but unsuccessful, war of independence against American occupation forces from 1899 to 1902. Full Filipino independence was not achieved until 1946.

A number of veterans organizations emerged from the Spanish-American War and the ensuing Philippine–American War. The 1937 SAWV encampment in Lawrenceburg was the fifteenth state convention of the organization and it drew nearly 1,000 members of the SAWV and the Ladies Auxiliary . The local McNeely Post No. 28 of the SAWV hosted the event, which began with memorial services on June 6 at First Baptist Church and Coleman Methodist Church.

On June 7, the veterans heard speeches from the mayor of Lawrenceburg and the Governor of Tennessee. That afternoon there was a baseball game followed by a banquet hosted by men who served in Lawrence County’s Company D, 1st Tennessee Infantry in the Philippines. Following the banquet, guests were treated to a fireworks display and a “sham battle” or reenactment at Fairview Park.

A business meeting was held on June 8 for the purpose of electing officers and selecting the site of the 1938 encampment.

Images courtesy of the Old Jail Museum.