I feel fortunate that my city wasn’t hit harder by the 2008 economic recession.
We have always been a rich community filled with local businesses run by families and their descendents.
We’re one of the few places in the country that refuses to grant a business license to Walmart within the city limits. You may feel one way or another about that decision, but it goes to show that most residents here would prefer to shop at family-owned businesses opposed to ruthless corporations if given the chance. Not to mention some of our multi-generational companies make up the best the city has to offer for restaurants, stores, and professional services. Whenever I want to make custom t-shirts or clothing, I visit this family-owned silk screening business that has been in the same downtown location since my parents were little kids. This silk screening business is a staple of our community. Some of their machines and equipment go back decades before modern printing technology was available. When they create shirts like they did before, everything is done by hand. But this silk screening company is also looking toward the future as well. They recently purchased a digital printer that can create tagless t-shirts. This offers them more flexibility when a client brings them a design for a t-shirt via a jpeg or PDF file. Then they can use the digital printer to put the custom design onto the tagless t-shirts. I found out that all of the t-shirts sold by the local high school are made by this silk screening business with their new digital t-shirt printer.