A Golden Eagle Passes—With Flying Colors

I’m always a little apprehensive whenever I first visit one of the Golden Eagles, agurbs® that our research showed were the top 100 small towns in the USA. And with only one exception I’ve always been extremely impressed with what I see on the ground. Grants Pass, OR (population 23,003) didn’t disappoint on my first visit there last week for a talk. I was most impressed with their physical assets (downtown, industrial park, parks, schools, natural setting, etc.) and also with a strong spirit of cooperation taking place in the town. But, most impressive was the number of new entrepreneurs that the town has attracted in the past five years. I’ll write about some of those entrepreneurs in a day or two.

Charlie Mitchell, the head of economic development for the city was my tour guide, with the most comprehensive and best documented tour of a town that I’ve ever had. He packed a lot of information and sites into two hours.

We started in the downtown area, which Charlie overseas in addition to his ED duties. Grants Pass has a two block historical district that dates back to the town’s incorporation in 1887 when it was a mining boomtown. The first downtown, constructed of wood, burned down. The locals rebuilt at the turn of the century out of brick. There has been a lot of restoration taking place and Grants Pass has an eclectic range of shops. They haven’t jumped on the vertical housing program of the state to develop housing in the old lofts above the retail stores, but I’m guessing that will happen in the near future.

I really loved the Evergreen Federal Bank’s Bear Fest which started out with 18 decorated bears three years ago and has grown to 62 today. They are auctioned off and raised several hundred thousand dollars for local charities. Brady Adams, president of the bank has been a strong supporter of the arts, particularly in the downtown area. During the Christmas season they do fiber optic murals and last year did an “Imagination Village” which had local home builders team up with local artists to design and build small houses like “Knight’s Castle and Tulip House” which were also auctioned off.

I noticed a number of galleries and studios which Charlie told me, “The arts here are new. It all started about 4 years ago and wasn’t on our ED radar screen at the time. The Bear Fest really got the ball rolling. Today it’s become an ED focus. The local community college has a program dedicated to teaching business skills to emerging artists, called Art Works.”

My wife would have loved their flower basket program which was championed by Chet’s, a local garden shop. “The proprietor, Cliff Benett, has single handedly taken this project on when on one thought that he could keep the flowers alive because of how much water they use.”

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about how the town has pulled together to work on projects in a cooperative manner.