BREAKING NEWS: Congratulations, Valley Junction and West Des Moines, on Your Great American Main Street Award!

The “original” West Des Moines and now home to 120 eclectic shops exuding charm, charm and more charm, was one of five communities honored as 2012 Great American Main Street Award winners this morning in Baltimore.

Dignitaries from West Des Moines and Valley Junction attended the National Main Streets Conference, where the winners were announced, to pick up the prestigious award.

“It’s huge,” Historic Valley Junction Director Jim Miller said before the award was announced. “In the world of Main Street and downtown revitalization, it’s the highest honor there is.”

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“When you’ve got 120 businesses that are owned by individual small businesses, that makes it very unique,” said Clyde Evans, West Des Moines’ director of community economic development. “To have that many businesses in a small concentrated area, you just don’t see a lot of that.

“It’s a really, really big honor,” Evans said. “This award is recognition for the efforts that have gone on in the past to make this one of the more viable shopping areas in central Iowa and the state.”.

Survive and Thrive

Judges -- a juried panel of representatives of former Great American Main Street Award winners and national economic development and historic preservation experts -- unanimously selected Valley Junction.

Miller said the district, which entered the competition for the first time this year, was the only one of the five honored to receive unanimous support.

Judges cited the Historic Valley Junction Foundation’s “remarkable determination and vision since its founding" and said that under the Foundation’s leadership, Valley Junction emerged as a premier arts, entertainment and cultural district in the state and is home of the largest number of specialty stores in the Greater Des Moines metropolitan area.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which presents the awards, also noted challenges presented by construction of indoor shopping venues --  in the 1970s and (the state’s largest shopping center) in 2004 -- and a natural disaster.

Valley Junction was founded in 1846 and quickly became an economic boom town when the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad relocated its roundhouse, switching yards and repair shops from Des Moines to Valley Junction.

Its transformation had been remarkable, but in the time it took for a levee to fail in the historic floods of 1993, it seemed that vision had washed away. Before the district got serious about revitalization in the 1970s, Valley Junction had a reputation as a boozy, tough area.

Though some merchants were back in business within two weeks after the floodwaters receded, it took customers longer to return.

“It took quite a few years to get people to start coming down here again,” said Ann Au, who owns on busy Fifth Street.

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One consequence of the floods was a winnowing of less serious merchants from the mix.

“The people that either came back after the flood or came to Valley Junction after the flood were more serious,” Miller said.

Fierce loyalty is one reason Valley Junction not only survived the floods, but thrives, Miller said.

“There’s a growing movement of consumers who realize that if you don’t support the stores, businesses and restaurants you love, they won’t be there,” he said.

Check back with West Des Moines Patch throughout the week for more coverage of Valley Junction's selection as a 2012 Great American Main Street Award winner.

Evans gives credit to a creative Valley Junction Foundation staff – Miller, Business Manager Jamie Lamb and Events Manager Katie Rooney – with what must be boundless energy.

“People in other parts of the country with much bigger budgets aren’t even doing a third of what we’re doing,” he said.

From May through September, the Foundation puts on at least one event a week with its Farmers Market/Music in the Junction concerts on Thursday nights. Other events include art and antique markets, Earth Day and Cinco de Mayo celebrations, barbecue competition and holiday open houses.

“A lot of times people don’t recognize what they have until they go somewhere else, and they see that other cities just don’t have that cohesiveness,” Evans said. “It’s a real testament to the merchants, the Foundation and the board.

“We just keep on enduring.”

Other Honorees

Other communities recognized were Bath, ME; Culpeper, VA; Jacksonvile, IL; and Washington, MO.

Valley Junction joins an elite group of Iowa cities – mostly in eastern Iowa – that have received the prestigious designation. Dubuque was a winner in 1995, the inaugural year for the Great American Main Street Awards. Other Iowa winners include Bonaparte in 1996, Corning in 1998, Keokuk in 2000, Elkader in 2001, Cedar Falls in 2002 and Burlington in 2004.