The 20 Best Small Towns to Visit in 2013
From the blues to the big top, we’ve picked the most intriguing small towns to enjoy arts and smarts
- By Susan Spano
- Smithsonian magazine, April 2013
(Brian Smale)
They’re picking Dungeness crab down at Bornstein Seafoods. Chowder’s on the hob at Josephson’s Smokehouse and the chef at Baked Alaska is preparing thundermuck tuna. In a dental office at the foot of 12th Street, patients sit in a chair that overlooks the Columbia River on its last massive surge to the Pacific Ocean. When the dentist disappears, it could be he’s gone out to the porch to see if there’s a sturgeon on his line.
One way or another, it’s about fish in this town. Wild salmon put Astoria on the map two centuries ago when 16 million of them swam upriver to spawn every year. Salmon fishing earned fortunes, gave work to immigrants, turned canneries into mints and lined the steep streets with flush banks, proud wood-steepled churches and Victorian mansions. And so they still call it “Little San Francisco.”
But time passes. Too many fish were taken. Dams rose, deterring the salmon spawn. The Bumble Bee cannery pulled up stakes and the plywood mill closed down, leaving Astoria a sorry fish carcass of a town. “Under a grey and leaden sky / A little city slowly dies,” the fisherman-poet Dave Densmore recited to me. (These days you can catch Densmore, who has a permanent tattoo of grime around his fingernails, reciting verse at Astoria’s annual FisherPoets Gathering.)
Then, it was as if Astoria put its foot down. In 1995 citizens raised more than a million dollars to restore the Astoria Column, a 125-foot-tall icon on Coxcomb Hill, wreathed in plaster murals that celebrate red-letter events in Astoria’s past, such as the arrival of the weary Lewis and Clark expedition at the Columbia River estuary in 1805 and John Jacob Astor’s establishment of a fur-trading colony seven years later—the first Anglo settlement west of the Rockies.
The pitifully triplexed 1925 Liberty Theater reopened in 2005—with original chandeliers and opulent Italianate décor. It hosts 200 events a year and anchors redevelopment around Commercial Street, a neighborhood alive with galleries, bookstores, cafés, microbreweries, a farmers market and seafood restaurants.
The Queen Anne-style Flavel House, built in 1885 with 14-foot ceilings and 11-foot, Eastlake-inspired pocket doors, was the domain of George Flavel, a Columbia River Bar pilot, and is now one of several Clatsop County Historical Society museums. Another, in the old county jail, shows movies made in town, such as The Goonies, a 1985 Steven Spielberg pirate-treasure adventure that has achieved cult status, at least locally. The soaring Columbia River Maritime Museum tells stories about treacherous storms, ships wrecked at the mouth of the river and heroic U.S. Coast Guard lifesavers.
Diversification helped bring the fish business back, and lumber companies now send enormous heaps of hemlock to Asia. Visiting cruise ships have played a role in Astoria redux, though movers, shakers and poets vow to make sure its blue-collar ring never fades.
They can’t do anything about the weather—close to 200 rainy days a year. On overcast mornings the bridge to Washington is just a pencil sketch, and some nights look like a Thames River nocturne by Whistler. How to cope? Good beer and coffee does it for ruddy-cheeked Chris Nemlowill, who co-founded the Fort George Brewery and favors baggy shorts in all weather. Of course, when it’s beautiful, long-timers say, Astoria is the only place to be.
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Comments (76)
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I couldn't agree more with your decision to put Petoskey on the list of summer "go to" places. I started vacationing there in 1988. I rented a place in Bay View for twelve years and knew it was where I wanted (and needed) to spend my summers! My husband surprised me by putting in an offer on a cottage in Bay View in 1999. The rest is history.... I will be packing my bags next week for my annual pilgrimage north! Thanks for recognizing the beauty of northern Michigan. Jane Austin
Posted by Jane Austin on May 10,2013 | 12:52 PM
Thank you for that great recognition. My book won the 2011 State History Award "Bay View, an American Idea" covers the close relationship of Bay View and the Hemingway family. Hemingway's mother a fine singer was deeply involved in the women's movement in Chicago and many of the women spoke in Bay View. His sisters both fine musicians performed on the Bay View stage - one a harpist and the other a violist. His aunt was a nationally known children's story tell who taught in Bay View.His brother in law was the grand nephew of John M.Hall the creator of the Bay View Assembly reading circle and magazine. Sterling met Marcelline in Bay View while she was staying at the home of Trumbull White. The family were close friends of Bay View assembly director Trumbull White who was a nationally known editor, writer, and war correspondent. Hemingway saught advice from him as a writer and the first thing Hemingway did was to take off to war.
Posted by Mary Jane Doerr on May 10,2013 | 09:17 AM
I agree. Fairfield, Ia is a most unique city. Surely a farm town but with an amazing quality of life not to be found elsewhere. J Las Vegas, Nv
Posted by Janice W on May 2,2013 | 05:43 PM
Fairfield is not only #7 small town to visit, it is one of the very best to live in. Homes are a bargain from 3 bedrooms under $100,000 to a 15 acre 8000 sq.. feet home with lake and barn for horses for under $600,000. Most everything seems unbelievably inexpensive.
Posted by Chet Swanson on April 22,2013 | 10:15 PM
Naples, Fl was on thr 2012 list and should have made this one. Great West Coast of Florida town for class, art, shopping, boating, beaches, golf,tennis, 3rd street, 5th ave, great dining, etc. Not just a place for winter snow-birds. Been everywhere and this is where I picked for home-sweet-home. Some may think a little high toned and up-erty? Well thats all great with us!!
Posted by Andy on April 19,2013 | 09:34 PM
Wyoming has many great small towns !!
Posted by Mary Link on April 18,2013 | 03:06 PM
MOST ANNOYING HAVING TO CLICK THRU ALL JUST TO SEE IF A CERTAIN TOWN WAS ON THE LIST. I FINALLY QUIT AT #5.
Posted by LARRY NELSON on April 12,2013 | 12:28 AM
Why not do something a little closer to home you know like Manassas/Bullrun or Lexington
Posted by Joey on April 11,2013 | 09:40 PM
Great article! Author Susan Spano is a college classmate, her travel stories are always interesting!
Posted by Eileen Murray on April 10,2013 | 07:11 PM
I, for one, didn't need confirmation of something I already knew: that Gettysburg is the best small town travel site in America. (But I'm glad it has been recognized in the Smithsonian Mag as well.) Gettysburg has something for everyone and I feel it's safe to say I can't think of anyone I know that would not enjoy a trip there. I love it there so much that I've seriously thought of packing up and moving to the area - leaving friends and family behind.
Posted by Chris Shelton on April 10,2013 | 03:44 PM
How I can get a tour?
Posted by methu on April 10,2013 | 02:20 PM
We love Gettysburg! So happy that the Smithsonian acknowleged this great town. Just a tip - Hauser Estate Winery, is our favorite.
Posted by Abby White on April 9,2013 | 12:43 PM
I grew up in cleveland and was elated to see the article
Posted by Gayle O'Quinn on April 7,2013 | 02:05 PM
unnecessarily unwieldy to look through cool idea, horrible format. UP YO GAME SMITHSONIAN
Posted by dpl on April 4,2013 | 09:35 PM
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