In the 1985 movie “Back to the Future,” teenager Marty McFly needs a jolt of lightning delivered at precisely the right moment from a town clock tower to his time-traveling Delorean to get back home.
Now the movie has inspired a fundraiser and block party to help save Hopkinsville’s iconic clock tower on East Ninth Street.
The Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County is throwing the Back to the Future block party on Friday, Oct. 6, with an ‘80s tribute band, Mixtape playing on Liberty Street next to the Pennyroyal Area Museum. The outdoor concert will include a multimedia display.
The band says its music “will take you back in time on a journey through the greatest decade in music history.”
Alissa Keller, executive director of the museums, said in a press release that the street and the museum “will be transformed into a totally tubular scene with fresh decorations, delicious grub, signature cocktails, a rad photo booth, and local memorabilia of the era.”
Party-goers ought to dust off their acid-washed jeans and tease their “hair to the sky,” she said.
Tickets are $50, and reserved tables with premiere seating for 10 people are $600. The proceeds will support the museum and its efforts to “Save the Town Clock.”
Hopkinsville’s clock tower sits atop the old central fire station, which is now the Woody Winfree Fire and Transportation Museum. A section of the historic building’s side wall was blown out in a spring storm. And the clock tower itself is in need of maintenance work.
Tickets will be available beginning Sept. 15 on Eventbrite — or at the Pennyroyal Area Museum, 217 E. Ninth St. The party starts at 6 p.m., and the concert will start at 6:30 p.m.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
