By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
JEFFERSON, Iowa, April 16, 2025 – Hard to believe now, but I saw it. Twenty years ago, some of the once-magnificent but by-then 125-year-old brick buildings that filled all four sides of the Greene County Courthouse square, were beginning to crumble. Bricks were falling. Foundations were bowing and, in a couple cases, partially collapsing. Once our Greene County High School football squad was summoned to haul buckets of bricks and sand out of one building’s basement when part of a wall fell.
What I’ve also seen, in the two decades since then, is a phenomenal renaissance here.
It has taken substantial private and public investment, bold vision, courage in local government, and the work of an army of volunteers for going-on 13 years.
That’s been happening since Jefferson joined the “Main Street” program that – on national and state levels – incents redevelopment of old central business districts. They emphasize preservation of historic buildings, public art, enhancing downtown residential opportunities, encouragement of entrepreneurs, savvy new community promotion, and more.
And, oh my, what a difference all that has made.
The Greene County Courthouse square, with the Mahanay Memorial Carillon Tower, or “Bell Tower.”
“Jefferson, Iowa, is showing everybody that rural America is alive and well!” local Main Street executive director Matt Wetrich yelled Monday mid-morning to a crowd of 75 or more gathered on the courthouse lawn.
The people turned out, despite high winds and chilly temperatures, to celebrate the community last week being named one of three communities winning the coveted “Great American Main Street Award” for 2025.
Jefferson, with a population of about 4,100, is the smallest of the three. The others are Denison, Texas, with 27,543, and Raton, New Mexico, with 5,943.
A delegation of 20 Jeffersonians flew to Philadelphia for the April 7 recognition of the winning cities. Our representatives, nicely reflecting the ages and circumstances of all the volunteers Jefferson has had all along, ranged in age from 3-month-old Daisy Rohner, in the arms of her parents Dan and Emily Rohner, to 74-year-old Marc McGinn, who is one of those who can seemingly build or fix anything.
A keynote speaker at the convention was Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who told the convention audience of about 2,000 people, that his state “gets it” about how the Main Street program has redeveloped so many communities there. He said the state this year is contributing $20 million for distribution to Pennsylvania’s local Main Street programs, “and next year we’ll be asking the legislature to increase it to $40 million.”
The State of Iowa doesn’t invest nearly that much in local Main Street programs here; of course, Pennsylvania is much larger. But Iowa officials, now led by Gov. Kim Reynolds and Iowa Economic Development & Finance Authority director Debi Durham, have championed Main Street Iowa for the 40 years the program has operated in about 50 communities across the state.
In the ceremony on the courthouse lawn here Monday, Main Street Iowa director Carol Lilly, detailed eye-popping statistics about the impact of the program in Jefferson the past dozen years.
Lilly said that since 2012 here,
–There’s been $6 million in government funding (local, state and federal) that has leveraged $18 million in private investment.
–The Jefferson Matters program has helped open 45 net new businesses.
–It has “facilitated the creation of 101 net new jobs.”
–It has “catalyzed the rehabilitation of 115 buildings.”
–It has benefitted from more than 57,000 volunteer hours from what Matt Wetrich says have been “hundreds” of local volunteers.
The one statistic there that I thought seemed inflated was the one about the program helping with the rehab of 115 buildings. However, the Jefferson Matters Main Street program has served buildings on 16 blocks – stretching two blocks in every direction from our iconic Mahanay Memorial Carillon Tower. I’ve counted now, and there are indeed that many buildings that have had some level of structural improvement.
Part of Jefferson’s renaissance are a half-dozen “rooftop art” installations atop businesses on the square — like these murals by local artist Dana Harrison on two businesses on the southwest corner of the square. The rooftop art is visible by visitors to the observation deck of the Bell Tower. (Photo by Matt Wetrich)
Mayor Craig Berry told the crowd Monday that two projects that started in about 2008 led the tremendous overhaul of infrastructure that continues to happen now in the community (five buildings downtown are being rehabbed now). Those two early projects were a $12-plus million construction of a railroad overpass on Iowa Highway 4 in the north part of Jefferson, and a $500,000 “streetscape” project on the streets and sidewalks around the courthouse square.
“Those got us rolling,” Berry said.
Soon after, when an old tavern building on the southeast corner of the square began crumbling, good citizen Jim Daubendiek decided that since that building was an “anchor” on the square, it had to be saved. Even though it was three blocks from Jefferson Telecom, where Daubendiek served as president and CEO, he bought the old corner building, had it completely renovated, rented it at first to a few businesses, then sold it to chiropractor Dr. Philip Heisterkamp who has occupied it ever since.
Mayor Berry and Amy Milligan, who is now president of the board of Jefferson Matters, noted in speeches Monday that among other early heroes of the Main Street efforts were Mike Palmer and Nick Sorensen.
Palmer served as City Administrator in Jefferson and, earlier in his career, he had had a similar position in a community that had a Main Street program. He encouraged the program’s start here, and led the Jefferson city government into buying, stabilizing and re-selling buildings around the square that were structurally compromised.
One of his key allies was Nick Sorensen, who had started working for the City of Jefferson as a police officer. But when the building rehabilitation effort started, Sorensen volunteered to get involved, explaining that he’d learned construction skills from his grandfather, who helped save a number of old buildings in the business districts of Exira and Audubon in southwest Iowa. “I’m not scared of old buildings,” Sorensen once told me. He’s now helping the state government save old buildings all over Iowa.
Many others were saluted for their early roles in the Jefferson Matters start-up and continuing success – Nancy Teusch, Chris Henning, Reagan Osborne, Alan Robinson, Peg Raney, Reegan Hanigan, Beth VanderWilt, and the uber volunteer Deb McGinn. They helped Jefferson Matters absorb the old Chamber of Commerce. The organization works cooperatively with the Greene County Development Corporation, which handles economic development and oversees the county’s new growth and diversity initiative – the Multicultural Family Resource Center.
Jamie Daubendiek, son of Jim who saved the first old building, served at least a decade as board president of Jefferson Matters before Amy Milligan agreed to succeed him. They are executives of two businesses that are major community boosters – Jefferson Telecom and Home State Bank.
President Thomas Jefferson, namesake of the town, and Matt Wetrich, who leads Main Street’s local program, outside the Welcome Center at the Thomas Jefferson Gardens of Greene County.
Wetrich, 46, has been with Jefferson Matters for nearly three years, initially as events & tourism coordinator, then rising to executive director. He knows the challenges coming for small town business districts are going to be just as serious as the condition of their old buildings has been the past 20 years.
“It’s not uncommon to see retail businesses struggling in rural small towns,” he said. “Retail is just hard everywhere. Even shopping malls are struggling. Online has really changed shopping.
“Jefferson is doing better than a lot of small towns are. We have some really nice specialty shops. Oh, maybe we dream of having a chocolatier and a bookstore, too, but those businesses won’t likely be able to do full building remodels. What we do see is that we have a number of service businesses – financial planners, engineers, health services – very interested in being on the square.
“With what we’ve done here with Main Street, we’ve given our business buildings another 100 years of life. We’ve got room for those service businesses, and we will still have those smaller spaces for new specialty shops, too.”
Wetrich is sort of the chief optimist in a community full of them.
“The Jefferson Matters Main Street ‘superpower’ is the power of connection,” he told the crowd Monday. “We connect the non-profits with the for-profit businesses. We connect private business to local government. We connect people to people. At the end of the day, we need to have a sense of belonging here, and an acceptance of new people. When people feel that power of connection, it’s amazing the things that will happen!”
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