The below article appeared in the Wednesday February 14, 2018 Edition of the Daily News-Record.
The Daily-News-Record gave us the permission to post on Shenandoah Newz website.
YOUR HOMETOWN: SHENANDOAH Full Steam Ahead Shenandoah Vision Team Hopes to Create Railroad Museum.
By NOLAN STOUT Daily News-Record - Photo by Nikki Fox/DN-R.
SHENANDOAH A group of Shenandoah residents have a vision and head of steam to improve the town.
The Shenandoah Vision Team hopes to clear a funding hurdle for one of its goals later this year creating a railroad museum.
The Vision Team grew out of a meeting held by the town and the Shenandoah Valley Small Business Development Center in August 2016. The SBDC is a nonprofit organization that offers free, confidential business consulting for new and existing small businesses.
Sara Levinson, a business adviser for the SBDC, said the meeting’s attendees focused on ways to improve the town.
€œOne of the things that came up is they felt like they needed some kind of vision or focus for the development of the town at this point, Levinson said.
The organization soon started facilitating a monthly meeting of residents to achieve their goals, which were narrowed to three areas events, gathering places and a railroad museum.
Each focus area has a committee. The events team is considering after-school programs and one-time or annual gatherings to bring people to town. The gathering places group wants to add or enhance areas the community can meet or relax, such as a coffee shop. The group also is focusing on improvements at Big Gem Park, such as an archery range and fishing pond.
The railroad museum group is seeking local funding to purchase a vacant lot on First Street near Town Hall for the facility.
Russ Comer, a Vision Team member and former councilman, and Town Manager Juanita Roudabush touted the town’s history with the railroad as a driving force behind the museum.
Shenandoah once thrived on the railroad that runs parallel to the South Fork of the Shenandoah River and was constructed in the 1870s, according to the town’s website. Norfolk Southern still operates a facility along the railroad.
The funding would come from Page County’s transient occupancy tax fund. Each year, the county doles out $10,000 to each of its three towns for economic development, Roudabush said.
The county also allows organizations to request a portion of the money for economic development projects.
The team is seeking $30,000 to buy the land and start preliminary engineering.
The location, Roudabush said, is ideal because it looks down on the railroads that run near the South Fork in town. She said some visitors sit in a pocket park on First Street to watch trains come and go and workers in the rail yard.
This would be a perfect place, she said.
Shenandoah has a small museum in Town Hall that includes artifacts from railroads, schools and businesses.
People want to continue donating railroad items, Roudabush said, but there’s nowhere to display them.
We’ve outgrown the space for everything, she said.
Comer said the town also wants to get larger items from Norfolk Southern but needs a building.
If they don’t know those articles are going to be secure, they’re not going to give them to us, he said.
Comer said the museum would attract visitors from Massanutten Resort who are a short distance from Shenandoah. Bringing more people in could spur economic development in a town that hasn’t really recovered from the closings of the Genie Co. garage-door opener manufacturing plant and the Wrangler jeans plant, Comer said.
Those are just a few recent examples of familiar hardships for the town since Norfolk and Western downsized most of its operations on the railroads in the late 1950s, the website says. Among those difficulties were fires in the downtown business area twice in the late 1960s and again in 2006 and 2007.
The town has been in a bind financially, and the museum could inject a little life into the local economy, Comer said.
We feel like this is something we need for economic development, he said.
Roudabush said Town Council will consider setting aside money for the museum, which the town would own and operate. Obtaining the property could also help the Vision Team secure donations.
If we can get a sign on that site, I think we’ll get a lot of interest, Comer said. I think we have some people who are really interested in railroads.
There’s no timetable for construction. Comer and Roudabush said purchasing the land is the first big hurdle, and the town should know by June if it received funding.
It would bring many, many tourists to Page County, Roudabush said. Everybody sees Shenandoah’s significance with the history of the railroad.
Article written by Nolan Stout at Daily News-Record. Photo by Nikki Fox/DN-R.
