Good morning, hello and God bless all of my Fort Payne family and friends. It has been quite the busy couple of weeks but things have really been moving and shaking here on Fort Payne Main Street.
We had the wonderful opportunity of getting to host the Main Street Alabama Board of Directors Annual Board Meeting here at the beautiful Coal and Iron Building. Main Street Alabama is very pleased with the positive direction of Fort Payne Main Street and our state director Mary Helmer wanted to show off Fort Payne to the Alabama Main Street board and they were impressed. We had some first time visitors and some past friends of Fort Payne come to our beautiful town. The return visitors were impressed with our steady growth and the first timers were blown away and vowed to come back with their families and stay, shop and tour our beautiful historic town and the surrounding beauty of our canyon, falls and mountains.
One of our first time visitors said and I quote “When I was driving into your town this morning I felt like this is what a real main street should look like”. That was such a wonderful compliment to hear and that lets me know that we are truly making major moves in the right direction, with a community effort by all. That starts with Fort Payne City and every department that moves us forward. The Fort Payne Chamber of Commerce, DeKalb Tourism, our merchants, community leaders and our Fort Payne people that love and live here.
Well my people, it is October and we have a big month coming up! We are very excited with so many fall activities. The annual Fort Payne Chamber of Commerce Halloween Block party is on Wednesday October 31st. This is a free fun event that our downtown merchants open their doors and hand out candy. This is a great opportunity for our community and our merchants to let people know who they are and what they offer.
Fort Payne is such a cool place with some new eating establishments coming in soon that will make a big difference in our downtown foot traffic and downtown dollars.
This is the linchpin of our revitalization of our Main Street district with the addition of downtown dining and this will be contagious to future entrepreneurs that will consider moving into our historic downtown district.
