Marketing Heritage and Cultural Tourism Grant Community Highlight: Glasgow
December 29, 2022 | Logan Breer
Missouri Main Street Connection Inc. (MMSC) partnered with the Missouri Humanities Council and the National Endowment for Humanities through ARPA in awarding $5,000 grants to 12 selected communities through a competitive process to fund projects focused on strengthening heritage and cultural tourism in rural Missouri. The grant helped each community implement a project and market itself to prospective visitors. These heritage tourism projects gave added value to the economies in each community through a range of projects from murals to walking tours to new monuments and building plaques that all highlight each respective community’s history for residents and visitors. One of the Marketing Heritage and Cultural Tourism grants was awarded to Glasgow Main Street in March of 2022 with the project being completed in October of 2022.
Glasgow, Missouri sits on the Missouri River with a population of about 1,200 people. This small town is a close-knit community, like many small rural communities across the state, where everyone knows each other. It is this atmosphere that Glasgow Main Street Association says creates a “warm, inviting place to visit.” Glasgow Main Street Association used the grant to capture aspects of its district’s culture, heritage, historical highlights, and modern-day staples through two murals completed by Peggy Guest and Company, also known as Guest Design Studio.
The first mural commissioned was a block letter mural of the town’s name surrounded by local architecture and historical landmarks along the river. Farm land, a railroad bridge, a train, and a barge going up the riverfront are all depicted surrounding “GLASGOW’. This is the first thing visitors see as they enter the district. The mural is secured to the side of a building using removable board canvases, which allowed the mural to be worked on in the artist’s studio instead of on a lift. Additionally, Glasgow Main Street Association has the ability to remove the mural during any future architectural and preservation updates to the building.
The second mural is located in downtown Glasgow’s pocket park as a photo wall invoking visitors to stop and try to catch the fish. The giant fish in the pocket park emphasizes the outdoor nature of this community and love of the outdoors.
The beautification achievement made by the Glasgow Main Street Association through the addition of these two murals to their downtown is sure to excite and leave a lasting impression on everyone who comes to visit the City of Glasgow. Drawing people to downtown allows visitors to shop the different storefronts, eat at the restaurants, and take a keepsake home to remember their time in the beautiful, quaint little town of Glasgow. These two murals are the newest additions to the district’s showcase which is made up of over 52 stops for visitors and tourists to visit that include historic sites with historical place markers and plaques noting the important dates and locations going back to the 1800’s. Through this, visitors can see a picture of the historical layout of the city and growth that made the City of Glasgow what it is today.
Missouri Main Street Connection awarded the Marketing Heritage & Cultural Tourism Grants in partnership with the Missouri Humanities Council and the National Endowment for Humanities through the American Rescue Plan Act.
