After a city wide meeting with Marcus Lemonis, entrepreneur and host of the hit TV show "The Profit", the community came together to "Reinvent Horton". The Chamber of Commerce, and the community of Horton come together to clean, rebuild, assist residents and business owners who need help with yard & outdoor work, and brainstorm on future plans to better the City Of Horton.
Our Mission Statement: This corporation is organized for the purpose of combating community deterioration, by promoting, fostering and encouraging the community development and rehabilitation of the City of Horton and its surrounding area by suggesting, promoting, providing and encouraging community development and rehabilitation through an organized and dedicated area-wide effort, while preserving its cultural and historic roots.
Board members include: President, Connie Werner; Vice-President, Peggy Houston; Secretary, Rita Boller; Treasurer Hunter Speer; Building Supervisor, Tim Lentz; Mckenna Boller-Simon and Tara Speer.
Update
As of September 26th, 2018 from Reinvent Horton member Connie Werner; What has Reinvent be up to, that is the question people are asking. So, we apologize for not doing a better job in letting you know and will try to do better in the future.
We have generously been offered a building owned by Ken Krug for a town museum. This building in its birth was the Second Baptist Church built in 1919 standing on the corner of ninth and second avenue east. The church was built for and by the black families that were moving to Horton to work on the railroad. Everyone in their community worked, those who could not work pledged money, prominent Horton citizens donated building materials.
We move forward to today almost 100 years later and we would like to give the building new life as a museum. As with the community of 100 years ago it will take us all to make this happen. Reinvent is ready to man the project and make it a reality but will need help from the community with labor, supplies, building materials, finances and other things.
When Reinvent set up the temporary museum in 2016 celebrating Horton’s birthday, there were many who commented that it would be wonderful to have a town museum. Many people offered and brought old pictures, railroad artifacts, historical displays and many other items and artifacts for the temporary museum. There was offers to bring displays, artifacts and other items if we got the chance to have our own town museum.
Are you willing to get involved with this project? We will not be able to pursue this project without your help. Please feel free to contact one of the Reinvent board members, with your offers of help and ideas. We look forward to hearing from you.
The apartment above the old “Electric City Emporium” has been completed and is beautiful! We will be having an open house soon and we hope you can make it.
The old Duckwall building is now empty and we are sorry that it did not work out for R bar B, but wish them much success in their store in Topeka. The building is now being remodeled for an antique, collectibles and gift shop. The store will be called “Aged Goodness” and will be ran by Reinvent with volunteers and those vendors who have booths in the store. Our plans are to be open for the upcoming holiday season.
The “Delaware Valley” building is being remodeled with new paint and flooring. This is a very nice and large building just waiting for the right tenant to move in.
The yellow curb striping will be coming up soon, we plan to start this in September. This is a project the City of Horton and Reinvent are doing together. If you, or groups or organizations would like to help with this project please call John Calhoon at City Hall 785-486-2681 or Reinvent, Connie Werner 785-548-5500. When we did this a couple of years ago many visitors to our town made comment on how it made our town look so neat and clean.
We continue to work on the Rock Island Park and hope to have it completed by spring of next year. The train picture is being restored by the art class at Horton High School. The original painting was done by Shari Lott and her mother, the late Evelyn Robinson. We are working on ideas of other play ground equipment that might be installed in the park. If you have any ideas or would like to help in this area please contact us.
The Memorial Park at the four corners downtown is still in the planning stage. We still have in mind a mural, veterans’ remembrance, performance stage and other ideas. We really would like input on what you would like to see in the park.
We had a very successful Brown County Fair Booth with all proceeds going back into Reinvent projects. We had wonderful and fun filled volunteers for the food booth and even though it is very hard work for about two weeks it is so worth it.
Reinvent obtained permission from KU Spencer Research Library to print and distribute the Bourquin picture collection from 1888-1947. It was decided that we would distribute the first series of postcards from that collection to the attendees as a gift since the Brown County Fair was celebrating its 100th year. We are in the process of printing them again and they will be offered for $10.00 a set of ten. We will be working on the second series before the upcoming holiday season.
We would like to say thank you to the first very successful year of the new Horton Swimming Pool. There were many families, children and adults that enjoyed the first year of its opening. It is a much needed and great asset to our community.
At this time, we would like to thank all of the wonderful volunteers who have been so tireless in their full lives to devote time to our many projects. The town of Horton is very blessed to have such caring people. If you would like to participate in any of the projects please contact one of the board members..
Our Mission Statement: This corporation is organized for the purpose of combating community deterioration, by promoting, fostering and encouraging the community development and rehabilitation of the City of Horton and its surrounding area by suggesting, promoting, providing and encouraging community development and rehabilitation through an organized and dedicated area-wide effort, while preserving its cultural and historic roots.
