Entrepreneurs save downtown Springfield

And so it was. And so it did. But never enough to bring it back to the thriving central business district it once was.

Until now.

Downtown Springfield never got that one big break that would have turned it around overnight. But it had a friend. A friend that stuck by it and kept it from falling into ruin. A friend that saw its worth even in the worst of times.

Enter the savior of downtown Springfield: the entrepreneur.

It was individuals with small businesses and big dreams who kept downtown alive over the last quarter century, and who made it what it is now.

In 1994 I wrote a column headed, “The critics are right: Downtown will never be what it was.” My point was that it was going to be something different, something better.

And the people making it happen were small-business owners.

I considered re-running that article for this, our 25th anniversary issue, but I chose not to. Not because I have any compunction about saying “I told you so” – this might be the only opportunity I’ll ever get – but because most of the businesses I mentioned in that column no longer exist.

No one can buy antiques and baked goods at Keet & Rountree anymore. These days it’s The Boogie.

No one can buy coffee and catch up on the Utne Reader at Moon City Coffee House. Now it’s Marco’s Pizzeria.

No one can buy funky fashions at Ms. Persnickety. Now it’s DB Design.

But as sad as it makes me to recall them – the few, the brave, the entrepreneurs – I am delighted to see that in every case their place has been taken by other entrepreneurs and other small, local businesses.

Many came and went over the years. They dreamed, they sacrificed, and they moved downtown forward.

And now all of Springfield benefits.