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A new wave of residents promotes city’s qualities

Business owner challenges city’s naysayers

Doug McGregor and his sister, Margaret Mattox, decided to move back to Springfield a few years ago to invest in the downtown, opening Season's Bistro and Grille at 28 S. Limestone St. Staff photo by Bill Lackey

Bill Lackey Doug McGregor and his sister, Margaret Mattox, decided to move back to Springfield a few years ago to invest in the downtown, opening Season's Bistro and Grille at 28 S. Limestone St. Staff photo by Bill Lackey

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By Kelly Mori, Staff Writer Updated 8:17 AM Tuesday, May 18, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — After the 1956 closing of the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co., the downtown printing behemoth that brought jobs and notoriety to the community, the city of Springfield adopted a “heads-down, looking-at-its-feet” view of the world, historian William Kinnison wrote in his book “Springfield & Clark County.”

It’s not hard to see why. Prior to that week-before-Christmas sudden closure that sent 2,000 workers packing, Springfield was at a high point. The Depression was over, demand for local goods stayed strong during the war and now people had money they wanted to spend and businesses were trying to meet the demand.

“It was a shock to the community,” Kinnison said in a May 12 interview. “You either worked at Crowell-Collier or you knew someone who worked there.”

The result was a city that lost both its notoriety and its self-esteem.

“I don’t know if you could say it still has an impact, but a lot of conversation about (the city’s self-concept) centers on that time,” Kinnison said.

Fifty years after the closing the city still seems to have that looking-at-your-feet attitude — at least that’s what Doug McGregor found when he returned to Springfield from Colorado to open a downtown restaurant, Seasons Bistro and Grille.

”I hadn’t even finished unpacking and people were talking about how they couldn’t wait to get out of Springfield,” McGregor said. “A lot of them were people who were born and raised here — people who never had an opportunity to go someplace else.”

McGregor was not alone in his observation — his sister and Seasons co-owner Margaret Mattox — who relocated here from Nashville — said she noticed a difference between lifers and people who are new or returning to Springfield.

“There is this pocket of people who either moved here or left and came back who really have a positive attitude and appreciate a lot of the things that are here,” she said. McGregor admits he gets impatient with residents who put down their own city and challenges them to do what he and others have done.

“I ask them ‘why don’t you invest in Springfield?’ ” he said. “I am.”

Beginning this week, residents can make a investment into their city by filling out a Greater Springfield Moving Forward survey available online, at local libraries, shops and the lobby of the Springfield News-Sun. Participants can offer their ideas in the area of economic development, education and work force development, enhancing the area’s internal and external image, revitalizing strategic community areas and strengthening local resources and leadership.