Along the Gila: Keeping the Copper Corridor Beautiful
Artist Juliana Brutsche, painting a mural on the old flower shop on Main Street./CopperArea
I bet you noticed the bright colors in Superior, not on the front of the downtown buildings, but on the back. The purpose of the paint job is simple: to make people aware that there is downtown district, despite having to get off the main road to see it.
And it worked! Superior’s Chamber of Commerce figured that tourism was up at least twenty percent with a corresponding increase in income. Now, the paint job along didn’t do it all. Once people turned off the road to see the downtown, they saw well-cared for buildings and interesting shops. But if people hadn’t gotten off the highway, they would have missed it all.
In the Copper Basin, three of our towns have worked to get people to stop – Mammoth, Winkelman, and Kearny. What was done and how has it worked?
