Kevin Dayhoff The Tentacle: The #art and culture of economic
development part 2
Kevin E. Dayhoff July 12, 2012
Later that day I met with a travel writer, Leonard M. Adkins
of Richmond, VA, at the cooperative art gallery,
Off Track Art, of which I am a
founding member.
For three-years, the 10 artists in the cooperative have made
a conscious effort to act as an arts and culture incubator for Carroll County
as well as to promote the sale of our art.
Mr. Adkins, an outdoor and travel writer, photographer, and
“
The Habitual Hiker,” is touring
Maryland through August 8 to update his book “
Explorer’s
Guide Maryland.” He visited Carroll County in 2001 when he first wrote the
book and has been back several other times for updates.
It was exciting to talk with Mr. Adkins about the role of
tourism, arts, and culture in Maryland. He has also written about the
Appalachian
Trail and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
As fate would have it, my wife and I spent last Saturday
bicycling from Brunswick to Harpers Ferry and back, where we had dinner at “
Beans in the Belfry” on West
Potomac Street near the offices of our good friends, Mayor Carroll Jones and
City Administrator Richard Weldon at
Brunswick
City Hall.
Located in a 100-year-old restored historic church, Beans in
the Belfry is an excellent example of an artistic approach to adaptive re-use,
and arts and culture as an economic driver and jobs creator.
The National Governor Association’s “New Engines of Growth”
report is a must-read for anyone involved in the development of public policy
that affects the arts and economic development.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
See also:
The National Governors Association recently released a new
report on the role that community arts, culture, and design play in job
creation and economic growth.
The 52-page report itself is an eye-catching and
well-designed piece of artwork in its layout and design.
However, even more amazing is that, page-by-page, the report
presents a compelling and persuasive case for encouraging community arts and
cultural programs, businesses, shops and industry to create economy and jobs –
in a manner surprisingly devoid of mind-numbing public policy wonk-speak.
+++++++++
See also:
By Kevin Dayhoff
July 11, 2012
One of my passions for July, besides thoroughly enjoying the
heat, is the
Tour de
France. This year, June 30 was one of my greatest days of summer…
That was the day that the 99th Tour de
France began with the “prologue” event. What follows, until July 22, is a tour
of France’s picturesque agriculturally dominated countryside, in 20 stages that
will cover 3,497 kilometres.
By the time a cyclist finishes the Tour de France, he will
have burned a total of 118,000 calories or the “equivalent to 26 Mars Bars per
day,” according to the BBC.
The Tour de France has a little something for everyone –
history, drama, intrigue, science, a mini geography tutorial of Europe, and all
of the fanfare and spectacle of what is arguably, one of the most difficult
sporting challenges in the world today...
And besides, so much of the humble – and insane – beginnings
of the Tour de France were started by journalists and a newspaper.
The humble beginnings of the bicycle race were as a
newspaper publicity event, brainstormed by Henri Desgrange in 1902, to promote
the sports newspaper “l'Auto.”
According to the
history section
of the Le Tour de France website, “The line between insanity and genius is said
to be a fine one, and in early 20thcentury France, anyone envisaging a
near-2,500-km-long cycle race across the country would have been widely viewed
as unhinged.
“But that didn’t stop Géo Lefèvre, a journalist with L’Auto
magazine at the time, from proceeding with his inspired plan. His editor, Henri
Desgrange, was bold enough to believe in the idea and to throw his backing
behind the Tour de France. And so it was that, on 1 July 1903, sixty pioneers
set out on their bicycles from Montgeron. After six mammoth stages (Nantes -
Paris, 471 km!), only 21 “routiers,” led by Maurice Garin, arrived at the end
of this first epic.”
Although the eyes of the world are on the Tour de France
every July, did you know that there were several celebrated bicycle races, in
the central-Maryland area, a number of years before the first Tour de France in
1903?
According to an American Sentinel newspaper article
published on October 20, 1895: “The most remarkable cycling event … was a
century run, undertaken by over three hundred riders, from Baltimore, on
Sunday last.
“Mishaps reduced the number, by the time the cavalcade
started, to two hundred and ninety-nine, among whom were several ladies.
The run was to Frederick and return.
“Two hundred and forty-six of the starters continued in the
run to the finish and made the 100 miles… Messrs. George M. Parke and John H.
Cunningham, of the Cycling Ramblers of Westminster, were in the run and
completed the century.”
At the Corbit’s Charge encampment on Sunday, June 24, I was
inspired by several conversations with local historians Tom LeGore and Ron
Kuehne, known well for his historic interpretation of Westminster Mayor Michael
Baughman; to revisit our local history at Harpers Ferry, Antietam, Washington
DC, and Gettysburg.
All are comfortable family-friendly day trips for those of
us who live in Carroll County. Well, by car that is…
So, in honor of the Tour de France, on Saturday, July my
wife and I spent bicycling through history from Brunswick to Harpers Ferry and
back on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath.
We had dinner at “
Beans
in the Belfry” on West Potomac Street, in Brunswick, near the offices of my
good friends, Mayor Carroll Jones and City Administrator Richard Weldon at
the
Brunswick City Hall.
Located in a 100 year-old restored historic church, Beans in
the Belfry is an excellent of an artistic approach to adaptive re-use, and arts
and culture as an economic driver and jobs creator.
We loved the ambiance and atmosphere of Beans in the Belfry.
Our food was wonderful and the service friendly and welcoming.
More than 100 years ago, "bicycle riders and racers,
were filled with excitement over an event to take place at the Pleasure Park, a
newly built horseracing track with grandstand one mile north of Westminster on
the road to Littlestown."
That property is now known as Carroll County Regional
Airport.
Thanks to research for the Historical Society of Carroll
County by historian Mary Ann Ashcraft, we know that on June 25, 1898, the
now-defunct American Sentinel wrote that "Thursday, the 30th day of
June, will be the greatest day among cyclists in Carroll County that has ever
occurred in its history.
One of my passions for July, besides thoroughly enjoying the
heat, is the
Tour de France. This year, June 30 was one of
my greatest days of summer.
