HUMBOLDT — Humboldt is a snapshot of small-town America.
Challenges are aplenty: Revitalizing its downtown, cleaning up eyesores in the neighborhoods, providing affordable housing and finding ways to attract visitors and residents.
The last census estimate had Humboldt at a touch over 1,900.
Time was Humboldt’s downtown was a bustling center of commerce, said David Broyles, as he moderated a session Wednesday evening attended by 80 folks who had come to envision ways to recapture past glory.
The picturesque square, with historic bandstand, once had all sorts of stores and shops facing it, even a movie theater. If a woman wanted a new dress, a man a pair of slacks, they found them in Humboldt. Ace Sterling sliced ham and weighed rump roasts behind the meat counter of his City Market. Bob Adams had just the notions in his Ben Franklin five-and-dime. Newlyweds dashed to Harold’s for new furniture.
Need tools or a pound of nails? Stop by the Grange. Want chicken feed? Go to the farm store on Eighth Street. Need a prescription filled? Roscoe’s and Garvey’s drug stores could fill the bill. Thirsty for a beer? Stop by the Bivouac or Leo’s pool hall, or sometimes another joint down the street. At mealtime, restaurants were plentiful.
On Saturday nights a couple from southeast of town pulled their old car up next to the square and sold jars of fresh honey that bees produced from sweet clover. Farmers poured into town — women to shop, men to peg thumbs in overall bibs and talk — and town folks didn’t miss the show, many sitting in their cars to “watch the people go by.”
Others, and not just retirees, gathered on benches in the square to gossip. Church services Sunday morning often were spiced by what was learned the evening before.
On any Saturday night now a shotgun blast down Bridge Street wouldn’t hit a vehicle, except for a knot in front of Reb’s Place, the local tavern.
JOE AND JANE WORKS and Walter Wulf Jr. are champions of Humboldt’s downtown. With employees and resources of their home-owned companies, B&W Trailer Hitches and Monarch Cement, they began to revive the downtown area long before Thrive Allen County scheduled Wednesday evening’s Re-Imagine Humboldt get-together.
They have replaced sidewalks on three sides of the square and added Victorian-style streetlights, as well as brick accents and trees, with easy-access watering. The Workses have improved buildings on the east side of the square, and are remodeling two on the north side for restaurants: Nobby Davis will open a satellite of his Chanute Opies this summer, Laura and Justin Houk hope soon to open their cafe.
Stacy Cakes reopened last month, after extensive repairs following damage from a severe windstorm last year. Several other businesses have residence on the square, including the recently opened Allen County Regional Hospital clinic.
Downtown isn’t dead, but it doesn’t have the vitality of a spring chicken.
That was the aim of Wednesday evening’s meeting, to find ways to encourage a downtown resurgence, more like what it was than what it might be … if nothing were done.
“THROW EVERYTHING on the table and have an open mind,” said David Gant, whose D&D Propane sales office is downtown. A housing solution? “Level old (junk) houses and build new ones,” easier said than done, but certainly a positive thought to deal with a problem often mentioned.
Humboldt — its governing body — has made progress in that direction by using grant proceeds to partially fund rehabs of rentals. Additional efforts beg attention, a reality that flowed to the surface of discussions with several thoughts about developing bed-and-breakfast cottages and loft apartments.
Broyles’ admonition: “Anything you can imagine, you can do. (We’re) breathing new life into it tonight,” to the point of nearly sucking the air out of the Room on the Square, Stacy Cakes’ community access adjunct.
Ideas flowed during 90 minutes of give-and-take, among seven participants at each of 10 tables. With mild cajolery, reaching out to what happens elsewhere and just plain brainstorming, a number of proposals took form. Thrive Allen County’s Damaris Kunkler jotted them down on large wall-mounted paper sheets.
They ranged from making Humboldt a destination to an open air flea market to a business incubator to, as Gant stressed, anything that the massed grey matter could envision.
After collective thoughts morphed to posted comments, a vote with colored stickers narrowed more intense thought to two areas, a youth recreation and art center and hotel or bed-and-breakfast.
Thoughts on a youth center:
— Expand city limits to “get more families here.”
— Ask (a logical approach) what kids want;
— Have a place where they feel safe; include internet access, counseling, job coaching.
— Find out what makes the coffee house in Chanute successful. What is being done there, how does it work.
— Kids are our future, find ways to keep them here.
For a hotel or bed-and-breakfast:
— Remodel small, old houses into neat or quaint cottages. Involve USD 258’s building trades classes.
— Shipping containers, their conversion to housing as a unique approach; residents take turns operating.
— Take advantage of the highway (U.S. 169) for single lodging, or a hotel, with local influence.
— Look at developing loft apartments on second stories of downtown buildings.
— Find funding, get youth involved, maybe employ a grant writer.
— Have positive attitude, and advertise what there is to see in Humboldt.
WHAT DOES Humboldt have to bring people to town? More than most residents probably realize.
Biblesta is the first Saturday of October. The nationally recognized Bible-based festival began in the mid-1950s and draws thousands of visitors, with parade, entertainment and — always a big undertaking — a bean feed.
Humboldt was very much affected by the Civil War. Confederate raiders burned buildings, and prompted Union soldiers being stationed at Camp Hunter for several years. A self-guided tour tells the story of the town’s involvement through large plaques in several places.
The downtown square is an attraction in itself. The bandstand occasionally comes into play for a concert or part of a fundraiser.
Camp Hunter Park, at the southwest edge of town, takes visitors back in time with its shelter houses, made of native limestone and built during the Great Depression through federal works programs. Some playground equipment harkens to yesteryear.
Cannon Park, on North Ninth Street, has tennis courts, playground equipment and picnic tables.
River Park, on the west bank of the Neosho, is noted for its flowers, nature trail, rock formations and quietude.
Walter Johnson, Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher, played at the park named for him in south Humboldt. The place where he was born is two miles north and a mile west of town.
USD 258’s sports complex, featuring football, softball and baseball fields with artificial turf are a mile east. The whole shebang is just three years old — another amenity that wouldn’t have happened without B&W and Monarch.
Humboldt also is the south gateway to the Southwind Rail Trail, which follows the old Santa Fe rail bed north. It connects to the Lehigh Portland Trails south of Iola and the Prairie Spirit Trail on Iola’s north side.
Mount Hope Cemetery, a short drive east of the trailhead, is shaded by a multitude of old-growth cedars and is the site of several graves of Civil War veterans.
Humboldt’s Historical Society has a covey of museums in the northwest part of town just south of Snake Holler, and the Humboldt Historical Preservation Society intends to reopen the Orcutt Museum before long, featuring everyday tools and household items of long ago.
Pat Haire has a shop on Eighth Street, where he fashions wood with intricate designs, using equipment originally found in shops a century or more ago. He also is refitting an old carriage house on Bridge Street.
NOTHING TO do in Humboldt? Only in the eye of the cynic, or those without imagination.
The congregation that listened to Josh Works, Kunkler, Broyles and Andy Huskaba were encouraged to turn Humboldt’s downtown into a destination and the town to one that outliers will be eager to visit.
Thus, the theme Thrive selected for the meeting, Re-Imagine Humboldt.
Huckaba, from the Kansas Leadership Center in Wichita, gave a short prologue to the meat of the event. He said to dream what could be and keep in mind the prescriptive outcome was to meet the public good.
“Bring factions together” to overcome hurdles, Huckaba said, and challenged all listening, and others who may join in, to “take an active role in leadership” and whatever activities arise.
No follow-up meeting to the Humboldt project was scheduled, but those infected by the enthusiasm — more than 70 from Humboldt alone — and a willingness to move forward will settle that issue in due time. Bet on Humboldt happenings.
Those wishing more information and who want to volunteer may contact Kunkler at the Thrive office in Iola or Broyles, Josh Works or City Administrator Cole Herder in Humboldt.
