Main Streets 2017: Washington
Local is the working word along Main Street in this large suburb across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. Vancouver has eight local breweries, most with tasting rooms, plus more than ten local restaurants, at least 20 locally owned shops, a historic movie theater with local history, a locally owned and run performing arts theater — even local food trucks.
All this homegrown vitality is enhanced with locally made art. Main Street “is festooned in bright, creative murals — including 18 of its storm drains,” wrote Sunset magazine in naming this one of the “West’s Best Main Streets.”
Among Main Street’s landmarks is the Kiggins Theater, a filmgoer’s Art Deco mecca that was built in 1936, then reopened in 2011 after a restoration kept most of its furnishings and flourishes intact. Also on Main is the Magenta Theater, a community performing-arts venue that’s in the heart of what locals call the downtown arts district, where Main is home to some seven art galleries and art shops.
For those interested in Northwest history, the Clark County Historical Museum is in a 1909-built Carnegie library on Main. Along with its rotating exhibits on local and regional history, the museum is home to the Brautigan Library, a unique collection of unpublished book manuscripts from around the world inspired by an idea in a 1971 novel by the noted Washington author Richard Brautigan.
As recently as a decade ago, Main Street and Vancouver’s downtown was struggling. But a determined revitalization project led by Vancouver’s Downtown Assocation has turned things around. The association is affiliated with Main Street America, a subsidiary program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that is helping revive and restore downtowns across the U.S.
Here, “the rejuvenation has been helped by a growing number of events in the downtown area,” reports The Columbian, Vancouver’s local paper. An ongoing favorite is First Friday, when each month the city center fills with “great art, great food, options and inspiration,” says the Downtown Association.
Just a short walk from Main, most every Saturday is Open Saturday at the Pearson Field Educational Center, part of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. Next door is Pearson Field, the city airport, which is the oldest continuously operating airport in the Pacific Northwest (a plane first landed here in 1911), and one of the two oldest in the U.S.
All photos courtesy of Visit Vancouver USA
