Essays From West of 98: Revisiting Some Vacant Buildings

Revisiting my first essay with a new and expanded perspective

I continue to pick up new clicks and new subscribers from my letter to new Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, so if you are new to this Substack, welcome!

This project that I call “West of 98” began in the fall of 2017. It was a slightly spontaneous idea that was fueled by something I read online (more on that shortly). I took that opportunity to write a short essay about improving our community in Stamford and I posted it on my personal Facebook page. I soon made it a weekly feature on Mondays. Over time, it grew. It became focused on rural revitalization at large, through the prism of our work in Stamford, rather than about Stamford alone. In 2020, I transferred it over to a Substack website and newsletter. It still runs in a few area newspapers as well. My readership has grown significantly, sometimes surprisingly.

The following is an updated version of my very first essay, published way back on Facebook in November of 2017. I republished it on Substack in November of 2020, but looking at the stats, it was read by about a tenth of the average readership today. Some people have read this before, but most of my readers have not. It is still one of my favorite concepts, so I have refreshed it for more folks to consider.

In November 2017, I read a wonderful and well-reported feature article at Bleacher Report about Stamford’s own James Washington.¹ At the time, Washington was in his senior season at Oklahoma State, where he would become a record-setting star wide receiver. He would be named an All-American and he would win the Biletnikoff Award as college football’s most outstanding wide receiver in 2017. After that extraordinary college career, he was drafted in the second round of the NFL Draft and he played several years for the Pittsburgh Steelers and a few other teams. The Bleacher Report author visited Stamford before Washington’s senior season, took in the sights, and met a few people.

There were a few sentences in the article like this one:

“Many of the buildings are weathered and unoccupied—something that has become far more common over the past 10 years, according to those who still call this place home.”

I’m not unaware of Stamford’s slow decline over the decades. I live and work daily amidst the challenges associated with that decline. I have been involved in, at varying levels, the renovation of several buildings that were once unoccupied and now have new life. But when a national reporter comes to your town and notices those things, it is still sobering.

Yet, I kept reading past that sentence. I am glad that I did. This was not a reporter belittling a rural community that he had never visited and would likely never visit again. This reporter visited our town and wrote objectively about what he saw. He saw some vacant buildings and closed businesses, but he also saw something else. He saw something more important. He juxtaposed Stamford’s vacant buildings with some wonderful people that he encountered and interviewed. He wrote another sentence that I endorse with pride:

“But still, there is charm here amid the emptiness. And beyond charm, this is a town that celebrates its existence and its people.”

The author continued his feature by writing about the people who saw James Washington as a community role model, but who themselves are hard working, decent people who make a community succeed and who inspire others even though their lives might be more anonymous. The author wrote of people who were proud of a favorite son, not because of fame and fortune, but because he worked hard and earned his way into accomplishing his extraordinary dreams. The author wrote of schoolchildren seeing James Washington as proof that they, too, could be anything they want to be, and that being from a “small town” was no limitation.

The imagery of vacant buildings and wonderful people reminded me of my own family’s Stamford “origin story,” so to speak. I was not born here. My family roots are deep in other, nearby rural communities. In 1986, my father was offered the opportunity to move to Stamford for his career. He asked his own father, my grandfather, what he thought about the town. My grandfather spent many years as a deliveryman and route salesman, for his family’s own fried pie company and then for Mrs. Baird’s. In those jobs, he often saw the “true” side of town as he visited many stores and encountered many people who did not know him. My grandfather observed that, even when times were toughest, he was always treated the most decently when he came to Stamford. That stuck with my parents, and as a two-year-old, I became a Stamford resident. My permanent residency has not changed in 38 years since. My grandfather’s experience is something that my family has confirmed in those 38 years. My wife moved here from Breckenridge almost a decade ago and I believe she would ratify it as well. Stamford’s greatest asset is its people.

Vacant buildings can be changed. When I think about the years that have passed since Stamford’s revitalization quietly launched about 20 years ago, I think about the buildings that were vacant at the time. So many long-vacant buildings are now full of life and business. Some came to life and fell silent again, waiting on the right tenant. Others are still vacant. There are even a few buildings today that were empty for my entire life and are now cornerstones of Stamford’s revitalization. Many communities undergoing their own revival have similar experiences like this. Restoring all your vacant buildings is slow, steady, hard work. They did not fall silent overnight and they will not thrive again overnight.

Vacant buildings are changed every day. It is much harder to change a culture of vacant people. A community can restore every building in its city limits and spare no expense, but without the wonderful people who treat one another kindly and encourage their own, it will never thrive. Stamford’s people are not perfect. They are far from perfect. *We* are far from perfect. We make mistakes every day. We struggle to contain our divisions and gentle our meanness.² But we celebrate our people. We celebrate our kids, especially. When I re-read that essay from 2017 and I re-read the article that inspired it, I am energized all over again to keep working to ensure that the buildings and the economy of Stamford match up to its people.

James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the “Rural Church and State” and “West of 98” podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found. Check out the West of 98 Bookstore with book lists for essential reads here.

1. Yes, the Bleacher Report article was published in the summer of 2017, but apparently I was behind on my reading that year. Sadly, I haven’t caught up in the eight years since then.

2. If you think this is a “Jayber Crow” reference, you’d be right.