We're taking Kentucky Edition on the road again this summer.

All this week we're highlighting the Lake Cumberland region, particularly Somerset and Pulaski County.

Somerset's once sleepy downtown now boasts new businesses and restaurants and a thriving arts and entertainment scene.

The rebirth started with a plan to bring the city's iconic theater back to life.

Today, we're taking you there for our segment.

We call Mondays on Main.

I can't stress enough, how empty our downtown was a decade ago.

You could have fired a cannon through downtown after 5:00, and you wouldn't have hit a soul.

Community leaders at that point would discourage you from trying to set up a business in downtown.

They would try to push you out towards 27.

We were a one trick pony with with Lake Cumberland.

It's a big pony.

But it was still that's what we were known for.

So when people come down here, a lot of times they go out on the lake and it's hard to get them off the lake.

We need to give them options to explore in our community.

And for the longest time, we really didn't have a lot of those options.

And the ones that we had were very poorly marketed.

Starting in 2019, our mayor had a vision to revitalize downtown through community events, arts and business.

We wanted to restore that sense of community making sure that it became a place that wasn't just a physical destination, but a feeling and a sense of belonging.

We started with the farmer's market, but we chose something a little different.

You know, we didn't just throw up a shed or a pole barn.

We did an indoor outdoor, roll up garage doors.

It's an event venue.

And last year alone, I think we had close to 300 events, including the weekly market in season.

Another community staple in investment was the Virginia theater, a 100 year old theater that had been shuttered for 27 years.

Like the idea of a market I'd heard most of my, childhood.

Let's save the Virginia.

And so we made a decision to to create a multi-use indoor event space that could do everything from hosting plays, live music, fundraisers, galas, live theater.

And it's been a home run.

We knew that this mixed use venue could be perceived as a as an anchor point for our downtown.

And with that, you would start to see other things come here.

So restaurants, bars, after five establishments, very few of them were here prior to the revitalization of the Virginia.

In 2018, we had one restaurant, one retail business, and now we are here and we have over 15 boutique restaurant entertainment options.

We're seeing a lot of new businesses, and we're seeing a lot of, second and third locations, from businesses that are coming into our community.

One of the things that I'm most proud of is the majority of the business owners that have chosen to locate in downtown are female owned and operated.

Most of them family businesses.

And so we've created an environment where it's not just the good old boys anymore.

Everybody feels like they can thrive and succeed.

Mayor Keck approached us.

2019, maybe.

Yeah.

2019.

He knew that we were looking for a secondary location for a restaurant, and he said, hey, what about coming downtown?

So we looked at it.

There wasn't a whole lot down here at the time.

We just kind of took a leap of faith and we thought about it, prayed about it.

It worked out.

Since then, our decision to open up the other businesses downtown was just being part of something they brought to Virginia Theater in.

And that's that's been a great draw to the downtown area.

Whether or not they even happened to go into the Tangerine, they say on that day they still see it and they know that, oh, come there one other time, or they'll stop in the charred oak and have dinner before they go to the Virginia, or vice versa.

Or they'll come over to the Emerald House on Friday and Saturday after the event.

So bringing more things to the area, events are bringing more traffic to the downtown area helps all businesses down here.

We live in, an incredibly divisive time.

And, you know, my focus has been on what can we do organically that does bring people together.

One of the major things was free festivals, an event that all economic backgrounds could come to.

We're talking about food, music, art, things that universally bring people together.

So we kind of built those festivals around those three, principles.

Food stock was our first.

What we did with that is we focus on the food trucks.

You know, that's that's kind of a big thing across across the nation.

And so we wanted to do our own version of that with all of our unique southern hospitality, our fall festival, which is called the Moonlight Festival.

And that's a where we do the big stage downtown on our Fountain Square.

We bring in music for the for the day.

We have our Master Musicians Festival with, over 30 years that's been taking place here in Somerset, Kentucky, and it just continues to grow and just be a highlight of who we are.

It's nice to meet you.

I'm one on a horse, soldier.

Bourbon.

I mean, that's another huge economic development project for our community, the Urban still House, which is, you know, part of the Horse Soldier distillery.

It wouldn't be here if it wasn't for their distillery coming to our our community.

And we're here to tell the story of the horse soldiers.

And so when you walk in the door here, we're we're constantly telling their story.

We got here a couple years ago, but it's been an unbelievable thing to watch this town grow.

And it has nothing to do with us because the distillery isn't even open yet.

It's just on their own sort of accord.

I mean, people are just finding out about Somerset slowly but surely.

And it's it's it's been so great.

If you look at our population growth specifically in Somerset, it outpaced the rest of the state by double in the last ten years.

We're proud of that.

People want to be in Somerset.

They want to be in Pulaski County.

Quality of life is is what it's about.

And I think that's why people stay in our community is one of a kind.

And I think it's special.

And I think that as long as we continue to tell our Somerset story, we're going to continue to grow.

And our thanks to Echo Gammel for that story.