The Puzzle of Hamilton, MO

The first portion of what I’m about to write comes close, I’m aware, to being something of a commonplace observation.  Nonetheless, it comes from “real” and “felt” experience and, importantly, it’s only the first portion of my thinking. That out of the way, here goes:

Over the past five weeks, Robert and I have primarily been going in and out of very small American towns.  Whether we leave a bike trail for supplies, or simply through the process of driving on country roads, small towns are the coin of our eye’s realm.  And here is what we see, over and over:  a number of boarded up buildings, some deserted houses, a few folks still hanging on, a “car repair” shop, (everyone so often) a new local diner trying to revive the town’s fortunes, a Dollar General and a Casey’s convenience store.  Given the option, we would always choose to buy our supplies at local stores, to dine at local diners.  Robert’s google searches, however, always turn up “permanently closed” for almost every independent business.  As a result, we now have Casey’s reward numbers and pretty much know the important stock carried by Dollar Generals everywhere, and on which aisle to find it.  But I look at each town, and I can feel the desperation. The town and its citizens exhale it. “What has happened,” you can’t help but wonder, “that has choked this town.” If I grew up here, I would be angry at the seeming injustice of it all.  My town has died, hopes and dreams left behind, and people in the big cities are worried about all sorts of nonsense.  

So, perhaps the cliche part of what I want to say:  just by going through these little towns, I feel like I understand at a gut level something I already had been told. When you feel like the American dream has been stolen from you, of course, you fight for anything that promises to give it back.  I don’t know where I would be politically if I grew up in such a place, but I know it would affect me, that I would think differently about what is and isn’t important.

Which leads me to the puzzle of Hamilton, MO. I urge you to read a Wikipedia page about the story of Hamilton if you don’t know it.  Brief sketch:  Jenny Doan, a woman who lost her life savings in the 2008 recession, was encouraged by her children—after taking a quilting class—to begin making homemade quilts.  Business being slow, they set up a YouTube channel for Doan; the immense popularity of the channel made Doan and her family immediately successful. In Hamilton, MO—a dying town like so many others—the family rehabbed a large block of three story buildings one by one, each one becoming some part of a quilting empire of sorts.  It’s remarkable to see. In a city with few other attributes, the quilting empire looms large.  Yes, Hamilton has a Casey’s and a Dollar General, but they also have so much more—a thriving supermarket, two hair salons, a brewery, a bowling alley, a Mexican restaurant, a pub, a breakfast joint, and so on. In short, rather than a dead ghost town, Hamilton is thriving in its own way.

While Robert and I were in town, I happened to be in need of a hair cut so I visited one of the hair salons. I asked my “barber” about the quilting empire: “People around here must love it,” I said.  

“Not really,” I was told. “About 50% of people hate it, 25% don’t care, and 25% like it.”

I pushed her a little more on this, and she told me that most of the locals hated the tourists who stood in the streets and took pictures; they hated the traffic in front of Main Street, they hated how parking could be a problem on weekdays; they didn’t like that their dining options were often filled with lanyard wearing quilting clubs who had come to visit.  I asked her about the economic impact. Surely, people must recognize that this town is alive because of the quilting industry.  That morning, she had just cut the hair of a guy who was in town while his wife looked at quilts. I was in her shop because the town offered me a Bed and Breakfast that could only exist because of the quilting industry.  The restaurants could only stay open because of these tourists (e.g., Robert and I ate at the Mexican place, and, clearly 90% of the folks there were tourists).

None of that mattered, she said, people just don’t like it.  Indeed, while it was clear that the Empire had done wonders to beautify their own buildings and to build a nearby park, it was never nominated for the annual “beautification” awards, she told me, because people didn’t like the entire thing.

And I’m honestly baffled. I get being confused and angry when your town dies, but this town is thriving, and the locals were angry.  Was it because the Doan family were outsiders (they were originally from a different MO town)? Was it because there was just too much “outsider” stuff that went along with the growth (I was told by the barber that the new food joint was good but she didn’t think the owners were American). Was it simply that such success pointed out that it could be done but wasn’t being done by the right people?  Or am I missing the point entirely?

I honestly don’t have an answer to this question, but—even though anecdotal—it seems to beg a lot of questions. And it seems to beg a lot of questions that are suggestive of our current political climate.  

I’m haunted by the sadness of the dying towns we keep seeing—I truly am. But I’m also haunted by reaction I see to this success story.  

And I’m not sure what to make of it.