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Ground Level Blog
Dave Peters

Main Street program is back in business

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Elmer Gantry, as played by Burt Lancaster in the movie of the same name, is a hard-drinking, fast-talker selling religion to the Midwest in the 1920s. No doubt there are lessons for today that Sinclair Lewis, author of the book the movie was based on, would be eager to have us learn.

But the reason you can see Elmer Gantry for free at 6 p.m. May 27 at the Main Street Theater in Sauk Centre is simply that the world premiere was held there 50 years ago. And that apparently was reason enough for it to serve as entertainment for the relaunch of Minnesota Main Street, an economic development program aimed at helping residents take advantage of their historic downtowns.

The program, which existed a couple decades ago but ran out of money and state support, obviously has the same name as Nobel laureate Lewis' most famous novel, which was based on a fictional version of his home town, Sauk Centre. (Too bad Burt Lancaster never got near a movie depiction of Gopher Prairie.)

Minnesota Main Street is back, powered by $100,000 from the state Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund (Legacy Act money) through the Minnesota Historical Society and operated by the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota. On May 27, the Alliance will formally ask communities to apply for the program (there's a program at 4 p.m. and time to wander the Original Main Street before the movie) and it hopes by the end of June to pick five places to focus on in the next year.

Residents in those five communities will get training, outside expertise, consulting services and other help to make their downtowns look better, to preserve history, to fill vacant storefronts, to bring activities downtown, says Emily Northey, newly hired coordinator for the program.

A partner in the effort will be the Minnesota Design Team, which is a collection of architects who offer their time for related services to Minnesota towns. The design team's most recent effort was in Crosby, in northern Minnesota, which I wrote about here.

It's not hard to find moribund downtowns around Minnesota, and it's not exactly a new problem for residents. People's consuming, driving, working and shopping habits continue to evolve, and so does their sense of community, both real and virtual. It will be interesting to see what blend of historic preservation and 21st Century usefulness people come up with in this incarnation of Main Street.