A new brochure designed by the Bowling Green Area Convention & Visitors Bureau highlights the historic Shakerag district, the traditional heart of the black community in Bowling Green. The brochure allows visitors to the city to take a self-guided walking tour of the district, centered on the three blocks of State Street between 2nd and 5th avenues. The visitors bureau is hoping the brochure and tour will give local residents new insight into the Shakerag district, while also drawing interest from black tourists, an increasingly important part of the tourism market, bureau Marketing Director Vicki Hawkins said. African-American tours are such a growing segment of the tourism industry and thats why we wanted to participate in this project, Hawkins said. Theres a huge market out there for this in tourism, and since we have the designated historic district of Shakerag, we wanted to let people know about it. Most of the buildings covered by the brochure were built in the first third of the 20th century and include schools, businesses and homes in the Shakerag district. One of the homes on the tour, the Southern Queen Hotel and Covington-Moses home at 140 State St., was and remains the only black-owned hotel in Bowling Green, said Maxine Ray of the New Era Planning Commission, which helped select the sites for an earlier edition of the brochure that accompanied a traveling exhibit of photographs from Shakerag. The homes owner, Mrs. O.A. Moses, still lives in the house, which was built in 1906 by her uncle, James Covington, and served many black travelers, some quite famous, during the segregation years, Ray said. U.S. 31-W was a traveling circuit for many entertainers, and Bowling Green was a good stop-off point between Nashville and Louisville, she said. Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner and many others stopped here before they became famous, and most of them stayed at the Southern Queen hotel because it was the only colored hotel in the city. In its day, Shakerag was a very close-knit, family-oriented community, Ray said. The neighborhood also provided most of the domestic services for all of Bowling Green, which in part contributed to the neighborhoods name. Many ladies in the area would do laundry and then hang the clothes out to dry on lines. On Mondays, the designated wash days for the community, many of the women could be seen outside shaking the rags and, from this practice, the neighborhood got its name. Were hoping this will really generate interest in the area, both from tourist and from people right here in the community, she said. For more information about the tour, contact the visitors bureau at 782-0800.