HUMBOLDT — It seems the folks running the New York Times have discovered something we’ve known for quite a while now.
Humboldt is a happening place to be.
At the start of each year, the Times posts a travelog of sorts, highlighting places around the globe worth visiting.
The list of 52 places released over the weekend — ranging from San Francisco’s Great Highway to Normandy, France, or the Daintree Rainforest in Australia — includes Allen County’s own Humboldt.
“We are especially keen on places where grass-roots efforts are pushing transformation, making their patch of the world better in the face of all that is wrong,” the article notes.
That description happens to describe Humboldt’s renaissance to a tee.
“We’re pretty thrilled about it,” Joshua Works, one of the founders of A Bolder Humboldt, said Monday. “It’s hard to think of a more prestigious publication to get a mention from. It’s certainly validation of the work we’ve done.”
The newspaper highlighted A Bolder Humboldt’s founding in 2016, when Works, his wife Jess and friends teamed up to help revitalize several dilapidated buildings in downtown Humboldt.
With the enthusiastic support from the community, a number of projects have been completed in downtown Humboldt, “to revitalize rural living,with the town becoming an unexpected and affordable oasis of cool surrounded by fields of wheat and soybeans,” the Times wrote.
THE IMPETUS for the Times article started last summer, when a group of friends, all photographers, decided to pay Humboldt’s Base Camp a visit for their annual get-together.
One of the photographers was a staffer for the New York Times, and apparently was so impressed with what the community had to offer, she convinced others at the paper to consider Humboldt for its travelog list.
If there’s one moment of trepidation, Works noted, it’s that the article has come while many of the projects are still ongoing.
Works noted the old Bailey Hotel is nearly ready to reopen its doors sometime in the first quarter of this year, complete with a brunch restaurant and cocktail bar. Also slated to open in the coming months are a new bookstore, whiskey bar and the much-anticipated Union Works Brewery.
“We have a lot in store for 2022, for sure,” Works said. “There are a lot of projects at the tipping point to being ready to unleash in the next couple of months. It does kind of feel premature to get such a large amount of attention for something that’s largely unfinished and unproven.”
But then, he concedes, that may be part of the rationale behind the Times article — to celebrate places where change is ongoing.
Humboldt’s improvement is an ongoing, constantly evolving effort, Works continued.