By Jake Betz
Assistant Editor, The News-Item, Shamokin, PA
Unless you include riding
all-terrain vehicles as one of your primary passions, the Anthracite Outdoor
Adventure Area (AOAA) might not rank at the top of your "hurray" list.
Driving on the interstates these days is plenty enough "adventure."
But even if some of us locals don't
quite "get" it, apparently the rest of the world does. Even the most
cursory of Internet checks provides sufficient evidence that off-roading is extremely
popular and riders have been flocking to the many first-class trails throughout
the Lower 48. Topping the list, of course, is the Hatfield and McCoy Trails in West Virginia,
considered among the best of the best and often mentioned as a model of sorts
for the AOAA.
Granted, it'd be a lot easier to
wrap your arms around a new factory that creates 500 good-paying jobs or a
coal-to-oil facility on county coal lands. But manufacturing, as we knew it, is
now largely in the hands of cheap offshore labor, and the Marcellus shale boom
has probably indefinitely delayed an anthracite resurgence.
So, whether we like it or not, the
AOAA has emerged as the top economic development initiative of Northumberland County government. You don't hear much
nowadays about the "new direction" the industrial development
authority was supposed to take, nor have we been given any progress reports by
Commissioner Steve Bridy on his campaign promise to spend two to three hours
daily contacting businesses throughout the country about relocating here.
The AOAA is not a pipe dream, it's
happening right before our eyes. So, if we know what's good for us, we will
make the best of it.
We've heard about the economic
benefits that will derive from the new park. Visitors from outside the area
will want to stay at campgrounds, they will want to eat in restaurants, they
will have to buy fuel and they will need to replenish their supplies at
supermarkets. And, of course, they will certainly want to visit Knoebels
Amusement Resort, our area's premier fun destination.
All this is great, but it doesn't
have to be all there is. It's up to us--municipal leaders and community
promoters, creative thinkers, daring entrepreneurs and civic-minded citizens--to
provide more opportunities for economically beneficial and socially rewarding
interactions with AOAA visitors who will be traveling here from other Pennsylvania counties or
other states.
Let's think outside the box:
- When people need a break from
non-stop (but rather intense) fun, what do they want to do more than anything
else? Shop! (Especially if there are ladies in the group.) This is an
opportunity to energize the downtown. Use as a model the types of stores you
would encounter at shore resorts or near other trendy tourist attractions, but
add businesses with a truly "anthracite" flavor. Sell coal souvenirs,
but make them unique, like you can't get anywhere else. Offer different kinds
of ethnic foods and hold regular ethnic festivals. How about a gallery or two,
with art for sale, featuring the work of artists from the anthracite region?
- OK, so we're not Jim Thorpe, but
why can't we promote our own community's coal region history? We weren't
fortunate enough to have an accused Molly Maguire leave a handprint in a jail
in town, but, although these cases don't get the high-profile attention
Schuylkill and Carbon County cases do, two Molly Maguire murders (Frederick
Hesser in Shamokin and Alexander Rea near Centralia) did occur in our area. Of
course, AOAA visitors will want to visit the Coal Miners
Museum when they go to
Knoebels.
- Ghost tours are a popular
attraction, as anyone who has ever visited Gettysburg knows. We don't have a Civil War
battlefield in Northumberland
County, but we do have
the bizarre--and absolutely true--case of the severed head that was found in
the early part of the 20th Century in the Coal Run area, kept by a funeral
director, and then was the center of a controversy more than 70 years later.
- Americans who are used to buying
cheap foreign-made apparel would be fascinated to learn about this region's
contribution to the domestic garment industry. If only area residents could
have gotten enthusiastic about saving the Eagle Silk Mill clock; that clock
could have served as a focal point for a garment industry museum.
The best thing area residents can do
is demonstrate some good old-fashioned coal region friendliness to people who
travel to the AOAA. We should want them to come back often.
Who knows? It's possible that among
the riders will be a real-life CEO who is looking for an attractive community
to relocate his corporate operations.
