28 June 2023
MADISON, Kan. (KSNW) — In the last 20 years, the population in Madison, Kansas, has been slashed in half. But, members of the community are determined not to let the town die.
“You go to amazing towns and amazing cities, and you come home, and you just see the state of decline continuing to happen to your town over the last 30 years, and enough is enough,” Jason McClelland said.
Jason and Amy McClelland have been renovating buildings in Madison for years.
“Somebody’s got to take the chance and start doing this,” Jason said. “I guess that was us.”
Both Amy and Jason grew up in Madison.
“We call this home,” Jason said. “We were born and raised here, and we started with the renovations, and we’ll keep them going, and we hope others in the community will get involved and maybe take some of these projects over from us. We would love that.”
Megan Dickinson is the general manager of the Boomtown Cafe and Harry C’s Gasoline Alley, and she also grew up in Madison.
“As someone who grew up here in Greenwood County, coming back 20 years later and seeing that our downtown had almost completely just disappeared was really disheartening,” Dickinson said.
The goal is to make Madison a place people want to visit.
“Sometimes getting out of a bigger town and coming to a small town for an evening is not such a bad gig,” Jason said.
The opening of Harry C’s Gasoline Alley in May is the first of many new attractions. It is named after Harry Colton, who bought and sold the first car in town.
Another place opening this summer will be Boomtown, and it is themed after the oil field boom.
Across the courtyard, next door will be a new business of some sort. Across the street was originally a pool hall, and they hope it’ll turn into a fun place for youth.
“We’re really fortunate with our downtown that we’ve got as many buildings still standing as we do, which is pretty rare for a town this age,” Jason said.
The gas station at the end of the block will be a 1957 Skelly gas station theme.
“It’s really cool to see that there is a major change that has happened and is continuing to happen in town.”
They say there are many businesses in town that need entrepreneurs to come in with ideas.
“What we’re hopeful for is that we can find young families in town that would like to come in and maybe take a chance on a unique type of retail business in some of these facilities,” Jason said. “What we’re really looking for is businesses that can come in that lend themselves to outsiders coming in and shopping.”
McClelland says they have had a lot of community support.
“There’s a lot of people in the community that feel the exact same way we do,” Jason said. “They’re tired of the continuous decline, and the only way to fill the storefronts is with our community and especially our younger community coming up with good ideas for storefronts, and ultimately, we want more of a destination created with Madison to where we can pull outside money instead of just always continuously trading our own dollars.”
Dickinson wants her kids to have the same experience she did.
“I want them to grow up in a place where they can thrive, where they can have strong community relationships, where they know that they can always come home to a place that’s going to care about who they are,” Dickinson said. “They deserve to live in a community that is thriving, that brings enrichment to them, that they can be an active participant in.”
If you would like to nominate a person or business for Positive Connections, fill out KSN’s online contact form.