2014 FINALIST ★ McMinnville,


Oregon A laid-back town in the middle of wine country


You know there’s something special about a main drag when locals refer to it as the community’s “living room.” “Third Street is the reason I chose to raise my family here,” says schoolteacher Sara Tucholski, who moved toMcMinnville (pop. 33,131) in 2002. “It offers a bit of everything.” ★ Pedestrians might pop into Grain Sta- tion Brew Works to sample their craft beers, or browse American-made vintage clothes and decor at Rag ’n’ Bone/MidMod.Then they can enjoy a five-star meal at Thistle, which buys its produce from family farms within 45 miles. ★ButMcMinnville wasn’t always so vibrant. The town was struggling economically until the Willamette Valley’s wine industry began to flourish in the mid-’80s.Today,ThirdStreet is home to nine tasting rooms, where tour- ists and locals sip pinot noir from vineyards in the surrounding hills. ★During the town’s


salon, a clothing boutique, a flower shop. More living spaces followed. “If a Main Street is only commercial, by 5 or 6 p.m., it’s dead,” says Miles Orvell, author of The Death and Life of Main Street.


MAKE IT WALKABLE. “I could list 100 crite-


On a Thursday afternoon, friends snack on small plates at the R. Stuart & Co. Wine Bar on Third Street.


resurgence, 15 blocks were added to theNa- tionalRegister of HistoricPlaces, many lined with the brick buildings that replaced the first structures built by settlers who arrived on the Oregon Trail. But what makes McMinnville truly unique, says resident SunnyMiller, are its people: “They are authentic, a little rough around the edges in a beautiful way, and un- deniable friendly.” —Jessica Wozinsky


ria that make up a good downtown,” says Donovan Rypkema, principal of PlaceEco- nomics, a real estate and economic develop- ment firm in Washington, D.C. “But if I were limited to one, it would be this: Are there people on the street?” Littleton, N.H. (pop. 5,935), encourages walking with raised “bump-outs” in the road that slow car traffic, and with a covered pedestrian bridge that spans the Ammonoosuc River. The town has also worked to make strolling fun, by placing pianos on the street for anyone to play and creating an alleyway covered with hanging umbrellas. As a result, says National Main Street Center’s director of coordinating program services, Kathy La Plante, “Littleton is a community where you park once and spend hours walking.”


subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Still, reviving Main Street requires resi-


dents, businesses, and governments to work together, one step at a time. Every town’s re- covery looks different, but here are some of the ways passionate citizens have reinvigor- ated the communities they love.


ENTICE RESIDENTS BACK. In 2006, a pio- neering couple opened the Cafe on Broad-


8 | AUGUST 17, 2014 © PARADE Publications 2014. All rights reserved


way in downtown Siloam Springs, Ark. (pop. 15,856, and one of our nominees for Amer- ica’s Best Main Street), and had the foresight to build apartments upstairs. Then a developer turned a nearby 19th-century building into five residential loft units. “Once there were locals living downtown, it added an around-the-clock vibrancy,” says Meredith Bergstrom, executive director of Main Street Siloam Springs. Soon businesses appealing to the new residents opened: a pizzeria, a hair


TOWN SPECIAL.Whether it’s Victorian archi- tecture, industrial history, or a mountain view, every town has something distinctive to build upon. For Astoria, Ore. (pop. 9,516), revitalization means developing an old water- front along the Columbia River that was once crammed with warehouses and canneries— maintaining the “gritty character” of the buildings while finding new purposes for them, says Rypkema. Now there are restaurants, retail shops, galleries, a historic trolley, and a five-mile-long Riverwalk. “You walk the street and you can still imagine the tough-talkin’ sailors,” he says. “They are building on that in a positive way: ‘This might not be a storybook version, but it’s our town.’”


PRESERVE THE BEST OF WHAT MAKES A


HARNESS CIVIC PRIDE. By the 1980s, the historic buildings of Sheboygan Falls, Wis. (pop. 7,773), had deteriorated so much that “a lot of people were ready to bring in the wrecking ball,” says


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JOSÉ MANDOJANA FOR PARADE


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