St. Louis Today has a very nice story on Paducah’s Lowertown arts relocation project. Just in time for the Quilt Festival which starts April 22nd. The movement from quilting to other arts was brilliant and brought millions of dollars into the local economy. Houses that looked only fit for demolition or a rat colony were converted into homes and galleries.

What Paducah did right was to have a vision, get buy in from the banks, the arts and government. The city of 27,000 now has a world class tourist attraction – and it all started with bits of cloth, needles and thread.