Humboldt, Kansas
August 7, 2022 11:36 AM Subscribe
Small Kansas town became a top travel destination after years of decline. Here’s how. (archive.ph) A music venue. A brewery. A book shop. A cocktail bar. A honky-tonk bar. A golf-simulator bar. A five-room luxury hotel. A fitness center. A gift shop. A coffee shop. A confectionery. All have either opened in recent years or are coming soon to this southeast Kansas town of 2,000. NYT, "52 Places for a Changed World: 36 Humboldt, KS
a downtown with half its teeth knocked out
First guess: Walmart.
posted by gimonca at 12:31 PM on August 7, 2022
First guess: Walmart.
posted by gimonca at 12:31 PM on August 7, 2022
Looks like Humboldt is not too far from Baxter Springs, which as all James McMurtry fans know is one hell raisin' town way up in Southeastern Kansas; got a biker bar next to the lingerie store that's got them Rolling Stones lips up there where everyone can see 'em.
posted by TedW at 12:32 PM on August 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by TedW at 12:32 PM on August 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
That’s really inspiring, I think. I hope. I want this to be a good thing. I do, I do, I do.
Eastern Kansas is a pretty place if you like wide open country land. The sky in such places becomes the epic, protean landscape of your lived experience. I’ve never really had that kind of intimacy with the sky and the weather since leaving Kansas.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 12:33 PM on August 7, 2022 [6 favorites]
Eastern Kansas is a pretty place if you like wide open country land. The sky in such places becomes the epic, protean landscape of your lived experience. I’ve never really had that kind of intimacy with the sky and the weather since leaving Kansas.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 12:33 PM on August 7, 2022 [6 favorites]
A few miles north of Chanute, where my parents met and where my grandparents lived. Yet somehow I can’t recall ever visiting there. Pity.
posted by sjswitzer at 12:43 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by sjswitzer at 12:43 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
That’s really inspiring, I think. I hope. I want this to be a good thing. I do, I do, I do.
I was actually looking for a place to getaway this winter and was hoping there'd be a cool artist enclave somewhere in SE Kansas, like a Bisbee of the plains. Kinda cool that I stumbled upon this but right now it looks like it is just a family or two that has moved from way out of state and bought a couple of cheap buildings. Looking on Google, for example, the Golf Simulator bar is only open for afternoons on Friday and Saturday.
Since it is only a couple hours away I might convince a few friends to check it out but these places tend to be incredibly insular and rural. I've been to a few neighboring towns like Pleasanton, which is only maybe 15 minutes away and similar size, and definitely felt the locals staring as we went into the only restaurant in town. It was not a good stare.
posted by geoff. at 12:44 PM on August 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
I was actually looking for a place to getaway this winter and was hoping there'd be a cool artist enclave somewhere in SE Kansas, like a Bisbee of the plains. Kinda cool that I stumbled upon this but right now it looks like it is just a family or two that has moved from way out of state and bought a couple of cheap buildings. Looking on Google, for example, the Golf Simulator bar is only open for afternoons on Friday and Saturday.
Since it is only a couple hours away I might convince a few friends to check it out but these places tend to be incredibly insular and rural. I've been to a few neighboring towns like Pleasanton, which is only maybe 15 minutes away and similar size, and definitely felt the locals staring as we went into the only restaurant in town. It was not a good stare.
posted by geoff. at 12:44 PM on August 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well, the ads I got served for a seller of tshirts with sayings like “Donkeypox - the disease destroying America” featuring the Democrat donkey gives me real “yeah but… still Kansas” vibes.
posted by obfuscation at 12:46 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by obfuscation at 12:46 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
Humboldt is about 45 min from where my grandparents grew up, and where my grandma lived until she passed away. That town is five times the population.
Here are the votes in each city’s county for the recent abortion question (“no” preserved abortion rights):
Parsons, Labette county, 49 no/51 yes.
Humboldt, Allen county, 50 no/50 yes.
So I think both counties are primarily rural areas where the question was a lot more even than expected.
posted by nat at 12:47 PM on August 7, 2022
Here are the votes in each city’s county for the recent abortion question (“no” preserved abortion rights):
Parsons, Labette county, 49 no/51 yes.
Humboldt, Allen county, 50 no/50 yes.
So I think both counties are primarily rural areas where the question was a lot more even than expected.
posted by nat at 12:47 PM on August 7, 2022
As someone in a state of dying rural towns -- I wish like, this sort of thing would happen in a slightly less nobless oblige sort of way as in the article with so many towns here, and totally could happen if there was the will. The idea that maybe a group of remote workers would make a compact with each other move to one town and yeah, like these people in the article, "create the town they want to live in". Doing it by lets say, investing in a local who'd love to open a coffee shop one year, helping volunteer in the tiny library. Some volunteer hours to helping the mostly older, isolated people left in town, and other things that would ultimately help property values and strengthen community bonds, so moving forward with larger things would have support, and demonstrate good intent. Slowly but surely, things like that. This town in Kansas at least goes to show that things can be done differently. People SHOULD be trying to do them differently, anyway, considering how things are. There are a lot of towns here that could use just a tipping point to improvement.
Listen, if cults can repeatedly infiltrate small towns then maybe a group of people with less skewed intent can lift up a town, I'd think.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 1:27 PM on August 7, 2022 [17 favorites]
Listen, if cults can repeatedly infiltrate small towns then maybe a group of people with less skewed intent can lift up a town, I'd think.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 1:27 PM on August 7, 2022 [17 favorites]
I was in Humboldt for work several years ago, spent a day at Neosho Valley Woodworks, which is just an amazing place. A couple of motors in the basement spin driveshafts on the ceiling of the first floor and long (canvass?) belts are pushed on and off these shafts with a broom handle to engage the woodworking machines. Utterly mesmerizing, almost cartoonish motion and sound all around. The moment I stepped inside I said “This looks like a good place to lose a finger!” The proprietor heard me, and luckily had a sense of humor - he said “Well let me know if you find any!” and held up his hands missing various bits of at least a couple of fingers.
posted by zoinks at 2:18 PM on August 7, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by zoinks at 2:18 PM on August 7, 2022 [14 favorites]
Well, the ads I got served for a seller of tshirts with sayings like “Donkeypox - the disease destroying America” featuring the Democrat donkey gives me real “yeah but… still Kansas” vibes.
I’ve been getting the same ad in my iOS WeatherBug app.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:27 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’ve been getting the same ad in my iOS WeatherBug app.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:27 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
As a child of Kansas and Iowa, this is causing me some real turmoil. Paul Cloutier's point about the freedom that comes with a low cost of living is really compelling. But with the culture of these places - and maybe I'm extrapolating too much from western Kansas - the feasibility of that seems to hinge on the immigrant either fitting the cultural mold, not needing much from the town's society itself, or not having much to lose if they decide to bail out. I don't know how you rebuild your town with a 25-year-old programmer living in the woods and ordering everything they need from Amazon.
It really is noblesse oblige that's working in Humboldt - and it will be very interesting to see if the nobles maintain their interest, or create something self-sustaining in the meantime. But I think farm mechanization and the automobile have sort of permanently broken the logic of rural Kansas and Iowa (etc) in a way that can't be undone.
posted by McBearclaw at 3:23 PM on August 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
It really is noblesse oblige that's working in Humboldt - and it will be very interesting to see if the nobles maintain their interest, or create something self-sustaining in the meantime. But I think farm mechanization and the automobile have sort of permanently broken the logic of rural Kansas and Iowa (etc) in a way that can't be undone.
posted by McBearclaw at 3:23 PM on August 7, 2022 [7 favorites]
Humbolt Kansas is home to the Monarch Cement factory - just the dirtiest and dustiest place you have ever seen. I can't recall anything else. In my time working across the Great Plains it seemed like every other county in Kansas and Iowa had a town that had managed to string together a charming small town vibe.
posted by zenon at 3:28 PM on August 7, 2022
posted by zenon at 3:28 PM on August 7, 2022
Fair point, Thorzdad.
posted by obfuscation at 3:37 PM on August 7, 2022
posted by obfuscation at 3:37 PM on August 7, 2022
The last time I was in downtown Kansas City 5 ish years ago, there were no local shops or restaurants in the walkable section of the downtown. It was all national and international brands and names. I went to the one restaurant that I didn't recognize the name of.
I am sure there were other parts of the city with local places, but in the walkable section that should have had local culture, there was none.
I lamented that this was likely the future of all medium sized citys' downtowns... look a Target and a CVS just replaced some of the major local anchor stores in my downtown. I am sure nothing will come of this. NYT only brings good things to the places it writes article about.
posted by 517 at 3:55 PM on August 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
I am sure there were other parts of the city with local places, but in the walkable section that should have had local culture, there was none.
I lamented that this was likely the future of all medium sized citys' downtowns... look a Target and a CVS just replaced some of the major local anchor stores in my downtown. I am sure nothing will come of this. NYT only brings good things to the places it writes article about.
posted by 517 at 3:55 PM on August 7, 2022 [2 favorites]
I'm wondering how much survivor bias there is going on here. How many other small towns built it and no one came?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:02 PM on August 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:02 PM on August 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
It sounds good but it also sounds like they're slowly going down the "mountain town" way of housing being too rich for normal people to live in:
posted by meowzilla at 5:16 PM on August 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
Staffing all these new businesses is a source of concern, Cloutier acknowledged. They will be able to draw upon some existing residents, but the town is small and housing in Humboldt is tight.If you're not going to build housing, and if a lot of enchanted tourists move in (like the Cloutiers themselves), it's not going to be great for the artists and low-income workers that give Humboldt that "small town vibe".
“People want to come here, but we don’t yet have enough places to put them,” Cloutier said. “We’ve talked about building worker housing[...]
posted by meowzilla at 5:16 PM on August 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
Every single person photographed for that article is white.
Just an observation, and given the importance of Latino communities in agriculture (even in middle-of-nowhere rural Wisconsin ffs), it makes me wonder about this small town and their "small town vibe".
posted by aramaic at 5:25 PM on August 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
Just an observation, and given the importance of Latino communities in agriculture (even in middle-of-nowhere rural Wisconsin ffs), it makes me wonder about this small town and their "small town vibe".
posted by aramaic at 5:25 PM on August 7, 2022 [10 favorites]
Reading Sarah Taber lately has me thinking about how often little towns are owned by a handful of families, and none of them wants to rock the boat. I'd like someone, for instance, to explain why Forks, WA is such a grim hole (speaking of everybody in the picture being white - and there's at least one recent story there).
posted by wotsac at 6:42 PM on August 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by wotsac at 6:42 PM on August 7, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm really baffled by this as I never heard of this town, it is way off the beaten track.
Pretty sure one of the guys I met in the college dorm was from Humboldt. It's not like its on the way from KC to Wichita or Denver, and the Neosho isn't exactly navigable at that point.
Just an observation, and given the importance of Latino communities in agriculture (even in middle-of-nowhere rural Wisconsin ffs), it makes me wonder about this small town and their "small town vibe".
Well, Wikipedia cites the 2010 census:
posted by pwnguin at 6:51 PM on August 7, 2022
Pretty sure one of the guys I met in the college dorm was from Humboldt. It's not like its on the way from KC to Wichita or Denver, and the Neosho isn't exactly navigable at that point.
Just an observation, and given the importance of Latino communities in agriculture (even in middle-of-nowhere rural Wisconsin ffs), it makes me wonder about this small town and their "small town vibe".
Well, Wikipedia cites the 2010 census:
The racial makeup of the city was 94.0% White, 1.4% African American, 0.6% Native American, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.0% from other races, and 2.0% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 5.1% of the population.Much of farm labor is migratory, and many grain farms are mechanized. If its not planting or harvest time, how much labor do you really need? And its not like they're in town to blow all their cash on overpriced mixed drinks and golfing sims. Plus, why this town instead of one to the north or south, with like, a hospital in town?
posted by pwnguin at 6:51 PM on August 7, 2022
Midwestern towns that rely on immigrant labor are definitely a thing, but I'm not sure if that's mostly in meatpacking cities - like the one I live in, for example, which is about 30% Latine and 5% Asian, with both those figures being heavily driven by employment at the meatpacking plant. (The city's Asian residents are primarily Karen refugees from SE Asia.)
posted by Jeanne at 7:38 PM on August 7, 2022
posted by Jeanne at 7:38 PM on August 7, 2022
Yeah, Wisconsin has a much more diversified agricultural economy than Kansas, and its dairy, fruit, and forestry industries are especially labor-intensive - in contrast to Kansas' hyper-mechanized wheat and soybeans. The cows in Kansas are all in the southwest, and voilá: Hispanic-majority counties.
(Which isn't to say that all this isn't also driven by wildly racist dynamics, only that it isn't this one town)
posted by McBearclaw at 7:50 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
(Which isn't to say that all this isn't also driven by wildly racist dynamics, only that it isn't this one town)
posted by McBearclaw at 7:50 PM on August 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
A Bolder Humboldt is the local initiative promoting it and surprisingly it was not driven by out-of-town carpetbaggers but a local company called B&W Trailer Hitches.
I don't think these towns rely as much on immigrant labor as California agriculture or meatpacking towns. From what I've heard it is incredibly automated. It really lends itself well to advances in self-driving as large flat fields with no obstructions are pretty much cheating at this point.
It sounds good but it also sounds like they're slowly going down the "mountain town" way of housing being too rich for normal people to live in
I doubt it, there's a ton of empty land where mountain towns tend to have finite space to build in. If anything it is like some towns in the Southwest which use to be sleep desert towns until Airstreams and the like swarmed in. The difference is that Kansas actually has the resources and infrastructure to support an influx of population.
The last time I was in downtown Kansas City 5 ish years ago, there were no local shops or restaurants in the walkable section of the downtown. It was all national and international brands and names. I went to the one restaurant that I didn't recognize the name of.
I have no idea what downtown you went to as Kansas City has been in the middle of a 20 year revival. They're so proud of their small business and restaurants it is almost a cliche. There might have been a 2-3 block radius in some government districts that doesn't have much but there's a streetcar (free) that just makes a loop downtown and takes you to the city market and hipster districts all within a several minute ride. Even if you didn't want to ride it I think you unfortunately just didn't know that a block or two in one direction would have likely brought you into an entertainment area.
I will say that unfortunately Kansas City has minimum parking requirements for businesses so you're not likely to see places in the first floor of skyscrapers like you would in other cities. This desperately needs to go as it means it concentrates small businesses where there's communal parking like a city market type of area. This was definitely intentional, but luckily the people who want to keep downtown as a business district are getting old and dying out.
Humboldt might do well to have a free/low-cost shared work/artist/makerspace type of thing. And put up tinyhouses or something similar. Right now there's two houses for sale on Zillow in the area. And even if the houses are cheap, not many people will want to buy a high maintenance Victorian house or spend time renovating.
I would also like to remind everyone of Little House on the Prairie. Weather here sucks. High deserts like in Arizona might get extremely hot but you don't have harsh winters or extreme weather patterns. Mountain towns have cool summers and predictable winters. Here you have biting blizzards with no natural terrain to stop them. The springs can see heavy rain and violent tornadoes. This is not that far from the Joplin which had a tornado so strong it ripped through a rebar reinforced concrete hospital. Summers can be brutally hot, all of July was close to 100 it seems. It looks to be in the mid to upper 90s all week, and that's with crushing humidity.
posted by geoff. at 8:03 PM on August 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
I don't think these towns rely as much on immigrant labor as California agriculture or meatpacking towns. From what I've heard it is incredibly automated. It really lends itself well to advances in self-driving as large flat fields with no obstructions are pretty much cheating at this point.
It sounds good but it also sounds like they're slowly going down the "mountain town" way of housing being too rich for normal people to live in
I doubt it, there's a ton of empty land where mountain towns tend to have finite space to build in. If anything it is like some towns in the Southwest which use to be sleep desert towns until Airstreams and the like swarmed in. The difference is that Kansas actually has the resources and infrastructure to support an influx of population.
The last time I was in downtown Kansas City 5 ish years ago, there were no local shops or restaurants in the walkable section of the downtown. It was all national and international brands and names. I went to the one restaurant that I didn't recognize the name of.
I have no idea what downtown you went to as Kansas City has been in the middle of a 20 year revival. They're so proud of their small business and restaurants it is almost a cliche. There might have been a 2-3 block radius in some government districts that doesn't have much but there's a streetcar (free) that just makes a loop downtown and takes you to the city market and hipster districts all within a several minute ride. Even if you didn't want to ride it I think you unfortunately just didn't know that a block or two in one direction would have likely brought you into an entertainment area.
I will say that unfortunately Kansas City has minimum parking requirements for businesses so you're not likely to see places in the first floor of skyscrapers like you would in other cities. This desperately needs to go as it means it concentrates small businesses where there's communal parking like a city market type of area. This was definitely intentional, but luckily the people who want to keep downtown as a business district are getting old and dying out.
Humboldt might do well to have a free/low-cost shared work/artist/makerspace type of thing. And put up tinyhouses or something similar. Right now there's two houses for sale on Zillow in the area. And even if the houses are cheap, not many people will want to buy a high maintenance Victorian house or spend time renovating.
I would also like to remind everyone of Little House on the Prairie. Weather here sucks. High deserts like in Arizona might get extremely hot but you don't have harsh winters or extreme weather patterns. Mountain towns have cool summers and predictable winters. Here you have biting blizzards with no natural terrain to stop them. The springs can see heavy rain and violent tornadoes. This is not that far from the Joplin which had a tornado so strong it ripped through a rebar reinforced concrete hospital. Summers can be brutally hot, all of July was close to 100 it seems. It looks to be in the mid to upper 90s all week, and that's with crushing humidity.
posted by geoff. at 8:03 PM on August 7, 2022 [8 favorites]
Wow if you want to really up the feel good notch to this story, the owner B&W Trailer Hitches company paid workers to improve the town rather than lay them off during the 2008 recession. I don't see Zuckerberg doing that.
posted by geoff. at 9:26 PM on August 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by geoff. at 9:26 PM on August 7, 2022 [5 favorites]
I stayed there recently in an apartment in a refurbished building with a candy store on the first floor. We loved it. Great little coffee shop a few feet down on the square. Great rail-trail that leads up to Iola where there are trails around a lake and then up to Ottawa.
We liked it so much that I've honestly considered moving there.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:36 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
We liked it so much that I've honestly considered moving there.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:36 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
The last time I was in downtown Kansas City 5 ish years ago, there were no local shops or restaurants in the walkable section of the downtown. It was all national and international brands and names. I went to the one restaurant that I didn't recognize the name of.
I went to school in KC during the 1990s and I used to drive through the Crossroads district every day to get to class. It was a complete and utter wasteland in those days. So was downtown KC. It was so dead at night time that I rode my mountain bike on the streets there with a friend late one weekend night because we basically had the entire district to ourselves. Not so anymore. I've been staying downtown or in the Crossroads district a lot lately because my daughter now lives nearby. It's a completely different world. The entire area is full of life at all hours of the day. Including late at night. At 1 or 2 in the morning kids are riding scooters or one-wheels or bicycles all over. I was drifting off to sleep one night when I heard the sound of a band. There was a New Orleans-style procession coming up the sidewalk below my window. It was a wedding party. I couldn't believe it.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:42 AM on August 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
I went to school in KC during the 1990s and I used to drive through the Crossroads district every day to get to class. It was a complete and utter wasteland in those days. So was downtown KC. It was so dead at night time that I rode my mountain bike on the streets there with a friend late one weekend night because we basically had the entire district to ourselves. Not so anymore. I've been staying downtown or in the Crossroads district a lot lately because my daughter now lives nearby. It's a completely different world. The entire area is full of life at all hours of the day. Including late at night. At 1 or 2 in the morning kids are riding scooters or one-wheels or bicycles all over. I was drifting off to sleep one night when I heard the sound of a band. There was a New Orleans-style procession coming up the sidewalk below my window. It was a wedding party. I couldn't believe it.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:42 AM on August 8, 2022 [5 favorites]
I've got one in my 900 person town
I have one and my town only has 450 people and it's 15 miles away from the nearest town of any consequence (a whopping 3000 people.)
posted by drstrangelove at 5:44 AM on August 8, 2022
I have one and my town only has 450 people and it's 15 miles away from the nearest town of any consequence (a whopping 3000 people.)
posted by drstrangelove at 5:44 AM on August 8, 2022
It sounds good but it also sounds like they're slowly going down the "mountain town" way of housing being too rich for normal people to live in:
Yep. When I started considering a move to Humboldt I saw that there wasn't much for sale. Prices are steep for small town Kansas... but not for the rest of the country. There's a house up for sale right now in the upper 20s. It's in need of a full rehab. In my little town (also Kansas) such a house would probably sell for $3000 or less. But my town also doesn't have the NYT writing articles about it, either. Nor are the millionaires living here in any rush to do what happened in Humboldt. Rather than fixing up interesting older buildings or homes they're in a rush to tear them down.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:50 AM on August 8, 2022
Yep. When I started considering a move to Humboldt I saw that there wasn't much for sale. Prices are steep for small town Kansas... but not for the rest of the country. There's a house up for sale right now in the upper 20s. It's in need of a full rehab. In my little town (also Kansas) such a house would probably sell for $3000 or less. But my town also doesn't have the NYT writing articles about it, either. Nor are the millionaires living here in any rush to do what happened in Humboldt. Rather than fixing up interesting older buildings or homes they're in a rush to tear them down.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:50 AM on August 8, 2022
I'd like someone, for instance, to explain why Forks, WA is such a grim hole (speaking of everybody in the picture being white - and there's at least one recent story there).
Well, that can happen when your entire economy (logging) drops out and the only replacement is a bit of Twilight-themed tourism. (It's also not entirely white, either, as is visible if you go into the grocery store or just scan the businesses on the main drag.) There are tons of tourists all summer (some for Twilight, but most using it as a waystop on their tour of the peninsula), but maybe because lots are budget campers, there just hasn't been the transformation of the town and development of higher-end infrastructure (or whole districts of antique shops, or whatever) that you see in some other small towns that get tourist influxes.
To the Humboldt example, I hope they can make it work. There are countless small towns across the US that have just plain been hollowed out. Often there is some beautiful old buildings, slowly crumbling, and not much reason for anyone who is ambitious to stay. The rise of remote work is going to change at least some of these places and very quickly.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:00 AM on August 8, 2022
Well, that can happen when your entire economy (logging) drops out and the only replacement is a bit of Twilight-themed tourism. (It's also not entirely white, either, as is visible if you go into the grocery store or just scan the businesses on the main drag.) There are tons of tourists all summer (some for Twilight, but most using it as a waystop on their tour of the peninsula), but maybe because lots are budget campers, there just hasn't been the transformation of the town and development of higher-end infrastructure (or whole districts of antique shops, or whatever) that you see in some other small towns that get tourist influxes.
To the Humboldt example, I hope they can make it work. There are countless small towns across the US that have just plain been hollowed out. Often there is some beautiful old buildings, slowly crumbling, and not much reason for anyone who is ambitious to stay. The rise of remote work is going to change at least some of these places and very quickly.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:00 AM on August 8, 2022
TeeGeeack, the crazy thing to me is that my town has the same population now as it did in 1900. But back then they had: two lumberyards, 3 hardware stores, 2 grocery stores, 1 dry goods merchant, 2 general stores, blacksmith, two livery stables, a bookstore, several barbers, a haberdashery, 2 women's clothing stores, a doctor, a dentist, multiple taverns and even an opera house. There was also the all-important Santa Fe depot which was this town's connection to the outside world.
Today there's basically nothing. A gas station that sells burnt-tasting coffee and half-gallon jugs of milk. And that's basically it. The grocery store closed in the aughties after the Wal-Mart Stupor Center opened up 25 miles away. The lumberyard/hardware store closed just before we arrived in 2010. Apparently he was going days between customers and what he had been operating as mostly a hobby finally got to be too much for him with his advancing age. People are now forced to drive everywhere for absolutely everything. Even though the population is the same there are a growing number of vacant lots where the city has condemned and removed run down houses. The town looks cleaner without those places but it also gives the place a "missing tooth" effect.
I'm glad to see Humboldt is rebounding. And there are others like Scandia that are fighting to come back from decades of decline. Not to mention nicer towns like Abilene and Lindsborg that are working hard to prevent decline in the first place.
posted by drstrangelove at 8:44 AM on August 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
Today there's basically nothing. A gas station that sells burnt-tasting coffee and half-gallon jugs of milk. And that's basically it. The grocery store closed in the aughties after the Wal-Mart Stupor Center opened up 25 miles away. The lumberyard/hardware store closed just before we arrived in 2010. Apparently he was going days between customers and what he had been operating as mostly a hobby finally got to be too much for him with his advancing age. People are now forced to drive everywhere for absolutely everything. Even though the population is the same there are a growing number of vacant lots where the city has condemned and removed run down houses. The town looks cleaner without those places but it also gives the place a "missing tooth" effect.
I'm glad to see Humboldt is rebounding. And there are others like Scandia that are fighting to come back from decades of decline. Not to mention nicer towns like Abilene and Lindsborg that are working hard to prevent decline in the first place.
posted by drstrangelove at 8:44 AM on August 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
"Many of the towns here have fiber connections."
This is a key bit about rural America. All too often its cyberinfrastructure is poor, and that's a deal breaker for many people.
posted by doctornemo at 9:08 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is a key bit about rural America. All too often its cyberinfrastructure is poor, and that's a deal breaker for many people.
posted by doctornemo at 9:08 AM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
the crazy thing to me is that my town has the same population now as it did in 1900. But back then they had: two lumberyards, 3 hardware stores, 2 grocery stores, 1 dry goods merchant, 2 general stores, blacksmith, two livery stables, a bookstore, several barbers, a haberdashery, 2 women's clothing stores, a doctor, a dentist, multiple taverns and even an opera house.
It wasn't just the town supporting those places. Within a 10 mile radius there were 620+ sections of land with anywhere from 500 to 2000 families farming them. A lot of people supporting the town with weekly trips that aren't in town. That land may be supporting less than a hundred people now.
posted by Mitheral at 12:37 PM on August 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
It wasn't just the town supporting those places. Within a 10 mile radius there were 620+ sections of land with anywhere from 500 to 2000 families farming them. A lot of people supporting the town with weekly trips that aren't in town. That land may be supporting less than a hundred people now.
posted by Mitheral at 12:37 PM on August 8, 2022 [3 favorites]
It wasn't just the town supporting those places.
Maybe that doubles the population, but the key difference is now there are cars and the US has normalized driving so much that driving 25 minutes to a destination is no big deal, especially one you don't have to go to everyday. But even a daily solid 25 minutes to work is the US median commute.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:46 PM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Maybe that doubles the population, but the key difference is now there are cars and the US has normalized driving so much that driving 25 minutes to a destination is no big deal, especially one you don't have to go to everyday. But even a daily solid 25 minutes to work is the US median commute.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:46 PM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
It wasn't just the town supporting those places. Within a 10 mile radius there were 620+ sections of land with anywhere from 500 to 2000 families farming them. A lot of people supporting the town with weekly trips that aren't in town. That land may be supporting less than a hundred people now.
As mentioned above, people here don't seem to think much about driving an hour to the nearest Big Box store. Many of these people didn't even seem to realize that there was an independent lumberyard/hardware store just 9 miles away. The owner told me that it was a regular thing to be called on a Sunday to be asked if he could open his store because they needed a part. Invariably they were installing something like a garage door they bought from Lowe's, despite the fact that this lumberyard could order anything they needed and have it within a couple of days. Unfortunately it's now closed for good, after three generations of ownership in the same family. The owner had told me for years that once his youngest was done with college he'd close. The pandemic accelerated the process by a year or two.
posted by drstrangelove at 6:55 AM on August 9, 2022
As mentioned above, people here don't seem to think much about driving an hour to the nearest Big Box store. Many of these people didn't even seem to realize that there was an independent lumberyard/hardware store just 9 miles away. The owner told me that it was a regular thing to be called on a Sunday to be asked if he could open his store because they needed a part. Invariably they were installing something like a garage door they bought from Lowe's, despite the fact that this lumberyard could order anything they needed and have it within a couple of days. Unfortunately it's now closed for good, after three generations of ownership in the same family. The owner had told me for years that once his youngest was done with college he'd close. The pandemic accelerated the process by a year or two.
posted by drstrangelove at 6:55 AM on August 9, 2022
And it's not just driving. Many, maybe most, towns in SE KS are close enough to the delivery hubs to get overnight shipments from online retailers. That's probably a point I should have included in my remote worker sales pitch above.
Small towns pioneered online shopping (or actually catalogue). It's always been a thing. In the past it was JC Penny, Sears, and UPS instead of Amazon. Amazon might have invented the overnight at a lower price and has far better customer service.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on August 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Small towns pioneered online shopping (or actually catalogue). It's always been a thing. In the past it was JC Penny, Sears, and UPS instead of Amazon. Amazon might have invented the overnight at a lower price and has far better customer service.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:52 AM on August 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
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Also is San Francisco rent so high it is cheaper to buy a town in Kansas?!
posted by geoff. at 11:54 AM on August 7, 2022 [2 favorites]