Open Writing

If you’re one of the thousands of small, rural towns in the USA that doesn’t have much in the way of natural attractions, what do you do to bring in visitors? Why, you create something that will draw tourists, or build on some local characteristic, however mundane, until it’s irresistible.

America, being the vast country it is, tends to engender tourism. You could travel the highways and byways for a lifetime and never have to make the same journey twice. If you’re a community seeking to boost the local economy with tourist dollars, the trick is to find a way to attract the sightseers and keep them in town.

Watkins Glen, a small, unremarkable town at the southern end of Lake Seneca, just south of Lake Ontario in New York State, has its NASCAR race track that draws thousands of racing enthusiasts annually. It also has a scenic gorge whose history reaches back to Jurassic times. Although the Gorge is somewhat ho-hum in terms of pulling in blasé tourists, the laser light and sound show they put on there certainly isn’t.

Just thirty minutes drive away is the city of Corning. Corning is a typical, small American company town in the middle of nowhere that depends for its prosperity on the presence of the Corning Glass World Headquarters. That in its self draws business people from around the world, but other than occupying the local hotels, such visitors tend not to spend their money on Market Street.

The real draw for tourists driving through Corning on Route 17, soon to become Interstate Route 86, is the Corning Glass Museum, and the Steuben, art glass factory, where you can watch beautiful and very expensive pieces being handmade. The Glass Museum is a unique collection of all kinds of art glass dating from the Ancient Egyptians to the present day, displayed in a modern, purpose built building.

So, what if you don’t have a NASCAR racetrack or a glass museum, or spectacular scenery? Well, you could establish a “Hall of Fame” for something or other. Cooperstown in New York State is an attractive small town in a beautiful rural setting, but it isn’t really on the way to anywhere, so you’d have to have a special reason to go there. The “Special reason” is the Baseball Hall of Fame.

One of the greatest honors for baseball players, managers and umpires is to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and join the company of such legends as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig. The institution is dripping in baseball history and memorabilia, and attracts baseball fans from all over North and South America, Japan and Canada.

With the best will in the world, it has always been tough to come up with a reason why any tourist would want to visit Cleveland, Ohio. A major city in the American rust belt, it was best known for the fact that the Cuyahoga River that runs through town was at one time so polluted it caught on fire!

In the past forty or so years, Cleveland has struggled valiantly to improve its image. It established a world class symphony orchestra, the Cleveland Symphony, led by distinguished conductors such as Lorin Maazel and Christoph von Dohnányi. The City cleaned up the River, and acres of empty warehouses on its banks were rehabbed for use as boutiques and restaurants, but they didn’t thrive.

Withal, it was still difficult to shake the old image and bring in tourist dollars. That is until The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was established there in 1995, in an impressive building designed by the international architectural giant I.M. Pei. The rock stars who have been inducted into the pantheon include some predictable names: Elvis Presley, The Supremes, The Who, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, U2, Bob Dylan, The Clash, The Doors and Roy Orbison.

Well OK, there are just so many halls of fame to go round, but a tourist attraction doesn’t necessarily have to be so grandiose. Darwin, Minnesota, population 276 at the last census, was put on the tourist map by possessing the world’s largest ball of twine. Just over 13 feet in diameter and weighing 9 tons when it was last weighed in 1979, the ball was created by farmer Francis A. Johnson, for reasons that he took to his grave.

Plant City, population 35,000, is located between Tampa and Orlando, Florida. It was so named, not for its horticulture, but for the railroad magnate Henry Plant who put it on the map by bringing the railroad there in 1884. Today, it is claimed that over three-quarters of the nation's midwinter strawberries come from Plant City.

Even so, tourists are not going to drive miles to see acres upon acres of strawberry plants, delicious though that fruit is, but very few can resist a festival. In March this year, Plant City celebrated its seventy-fifth annual Strawberry Festival. During the Festival, thousands of visitors are treated to the crowning of a Festival Queen, parades, a fair, musical entertainment, and strawberries; prepared any way strawberries can be. How sweet it is.

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