December 16^th, 1919…
 
The trenches in France are still filled with the grim debris of what was then touted as the “War to End all Wars”.  Across the United States, thousands of surviving veterans are returning to an uncertain future, with little in the way of formal “transition” services for returning to civilian life.  In Roane County, Tennessee in a small town on the banks of the Emory River, twenty-five of these men founded what would become Harriman’s Newman-Davis American Legion Post 53.
 
Named for two men who lost their lives during the War, the Newman-Davis Post was originally housed on property donated by the family of these fallen Roane County residents.  Harriman was a thriving community in those days, having been founded just over twenty years prior as a development of the East Tennessee Land Company.  Built on milling and mining, Harriman was a “Temperance Community”, organized on the principles of sobriety, unity, and progress.  Sadly, in the 1920s, a severe flood on the Emory destroyed much of the town’s industrial center and coupled with the financial collapse of the Great Depression… blunted these high hopes.
 
Just two decades after it was founded, Post 53 experienced yet another “Great War”.  As scores of men from the county volunteered to fight tyranny in Europe and the Pacific, a new generation of Legionnaries found themselves returning to uncertainty, but we were waiting for them.
 
The “Baby Boomers” led to a need for more education resources, and in the late 1940s, Post 53 and the City of Harriman cooperated to provide the Newman-Davis Post 53 property for the new school, in exchange, Post 53 was granted the property it currently resides upon, with the agreement that it would remain in our possession so long as Post 53 continued to exist.  Not long thereafter, the Korean War precipitated the continued need for an organization dedicated to integrating veterans into their community.
 
In the 1960s, the Vietnam War saw many local men sign up yet again. These heroes returned to a cold reception and a vastly changed nation than the one their fathers and grandfathers had defended.  Still, Post 53 was there for them.
 
Today, Post 53 in Harriman is comprised of members who have served in every American conflict from WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War to the Global War on Terrorism.  We are Soldiers, Sailors, Airman, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and now our Space Force command.  Our ranks include businessmen, educators, civic leaders, an Annapolis graduate and a general officer of the U.S. Air Force.  Moreover, we are husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters.  Post 53 has led the efforts to memorialize our veterans of all wars through local monuments and sponsored our local youth in attending Boys and Girls State and competing in the American Legion Oratorical Contest.  We work with important community organizations providing care for the elderly, better education for our students and as always… aide to our returning veterans.
 
Our doors are open, and we are committed to being here when inevitably the next generation of American heroes come home.