Rotary President Bill Lacy presents a book in honor of speaker Fallon Burns. Fallon Burns, coordinator for the Kilgore Main Street Project, shared her knowledge and enthusiasm for the progress made in Kilgore at Tuesday’s Rotar y meeting.

“It takes people, shopping, a clean landscape and lots of energy to make a downtown successful,” Burns said. “Your downtown has to be unique, not the same old thing.”

Prior to the meeting, Burns was taken on a tour of Troup’s downtown and she said there is a lot of promise and potential in what she saw.

“Troup has some great architecture,” Burns said. “It is a great start, but you’ve got to have the whole community and your city council behind you to make it happen. When we started in downtown Kilgore, there were a lot of ugly buildings and not many had thriving businesses,” she said. “Three years later, every building within two blocks has been refurbished.”

Many pieces came together to revitalize this area. Beautiful storefronts were restored through façade improvement grants. After meeting strict guidelines, businesses were awarded grants to cover half the cost of external improvements. This has also drawn key businesses to open downtown.

Live music, farmer’s markets, carnivals and much more fill Kilgore’s downtown days and nights and bring customers into the shops and restaurants, said Burns.