Promotion is key to improving local economy

It’s good to see interest in a unified effort promoting economic development in Baxter County, again.

This is an effort by the Mountain Home Chamber of Commerce to bring it, the city, and the county together to have a single entity focused on economic development for the area rather than multiple development promotion efforts. The Mountain Home City Council anted up $40,000 for the North Arkansas Central Chamber Foundation, and Baxter County Quorum Court members are considering tossing another $40,000 into the pot.

Money from Mountain Home and Baxter County would fund a foundation position to deal with day-to-day responsibilities of economic promotion. Currently, says the chamber, the top source of local economic development is tourism. That’s followed by healthcare, education, and industry.

It seems every few years there’s a renewed effort to promote economic development and growth for the area. I recall at least three or four during my years as a reporter. Some bore fruit, some faded away. There have been public efforts and private sector endeavors. Usually, the private sector undertakings focused on specific goals, such as getting a particular business to set up shop here, or one construction project.

Everyone has an opinion about economic development or an idea of how they think we should go about it. Bringing those opinions and ideas together into a focused plan is key to successful promotion efforts. That includes deciding what kind of economic foundation to have.

Until Bull Shoals and Norfork lakes formed, farming was Baxter County’s economic foundation, as it was for most of the country. That dried up when the lakes filled up and claimed all the bottomland, where cotton and other crops grew. Some thought then that tourism could be good for the economy.

City folks already came to fish the White, North Fork, and Buffalo rivers. The lakes just offered more fishing spots and room for more fishing guides to work. Plus, the lakes provided great places for boating and swimming, and those city folks needed places to stay and eat when they visited the area. Lots of local folks took advantage of the tourism opportunities and built fishing camps, resorts, motels, restaurants, and related businesses.

At the time, there was a saying that picking tourists was a lot easier than picking cotton.

Many tourists returned year after year. They fell in love with our area and wanted to move here for its simple Ozarks lifestyle. So efforts encouraging visitors to become residents led to a real estate boom in the 1960s. The population grew as folks moved here and went to work, or started new businesses, or just retired to enjoy the good life.

However, at the same time, young people moved away from the area, searching for better jobs and opportunities. Local powers-that-be realized the area needed those young people, and knew they needed to provide more jobs and better opportunities here. So the movers and shakers of the time - with names like McCabe, Baker, Nelson, Robertson, Gilbert, McClure, Saltzman, Tinnon, Dearmore. Bodenhamer, Dyer, Alley, Blackburn - pulled together to promote Baxter County. They encouraged businesses and industries to locate here.

It wasn’t just out of a sense of altruism they worked together to promote the area. Some were business competitors, but they knew if Baxter County benefited economically, they individually benefited economically, too.

Their promotional efforts in the ’60s started a two-decade boom that lasted through the 1970s. Mountain Home and Baxter County saw record growth and economic benefits thanks to those efforts. Mar-Bax Shirt Company and Baxter Laboratories located plants here, and other industries followed. Within a two-year period, the first two shopping centers opened in Mountain Home as national stores came here. More followed as more people moved here. From 1960 to 1980, Baxter County’s population tripled.

Promotion did that. Promotion resulted in a better economy and better quality of life in Baxter County. Mountain Home grew into a regional economic center due to promotion. That’s why we have businesses and restaurants no other city in the region have. It’s why we have a college. It’s why we’re able to provide regional healthcare services for North Central Arkansas.

To maintain our economic standard, and to make it better, we need focused, united promotion.

According to the chamber, we’ve come full circle and are back to tourism as our primary source of economic development. If we focus on tourism promotion, then as I’ve said before we’re going to have to up our game. We’re a destination for outdoor tourism, but we need to remember tourists need more than water sports and hiking.  Most communities I’ve visited that depend on tourism have a primary attraction, but they supplement it with complementary activities and attractions as well. Keep this in mind for any promotional endeavor.

If we can pull together the various promotional efforts to zero in successfully on tourism, the other two elements of our economic triad - retirement and industry - can fall into place. It’s been done before, and it can work again.