Celina Historic Square

Celina Historic Square. . In 1910 local businessman J. Fred Smith devised a plan to build a downtown shopping area in Celina. Influenced by the "City Beautiful" movement popular at that time, he acquired land, laid off the "Square" and proceeded to build brick buildings around it. This feat was accomplished in eight months. With Mr. Smith's supervision, Celina soon had macadamized streets, concrete sidewalks, an electric plant, and water and sewage systems. Other improvements to the community were a city park, city lake, and the first good road in the county named the Celina Pike. Brick streets were added in 1925., In addition to creating a viable shopping center for a small country town, Mr. Smith succeeded in creating a place that added greatly to the quality of life for all of the inhabitants in the area. In the succeeding hundred plus years, the square and environs that have been host to an opera house, band shell, movie theaters, Saturday drawings, world war two scrap iron collection point, parades, pep rallies, festivals, street dances, outdoor movie nights, and the veterans memorial and Cinco de Mayo events., A November 1911 article in "The Texas Magazine" states "The upbuilding of Celina in the last eight months probably has no parallel in the United States." A very fitting tribute to a man whose tenacity and vision helped create a place he always referred to as "Celina the City Beautiful." On October 15, 2011, the community of Celina celebrated the square's centennial.