FORT MORGAN, CO— When you arrive at Fort Morgan, Colorado, whether you’re at a motel, restaurant or Chamber of Commerce office, the first thing you see is a map of all of the places that were featured on HGTV’s “Home Town Takeover” show.
In January 2020, Spur, Texas, joined more than 5,000 towns across the U.S. vying to be selected by HGTV for their newly announced Home Town Takeover project. You may remember when a huge crowd of us gathered under the big spur to make a video pitch to the cable network. The nationwide competition was fierce, the first town from the entries chosen for a 2021 makeover was Wetumpka, Alabama, population 8,250. The second town chosen for a full makeover in 2023 was Fort Morgan, Colorado, a town of 11,500 about 70 miles east of Denver.
The editor and publisher of this newspaper stopped into Fort Morgan last week returning from a vacation and visited with locals to see the impact of HGTV on their town.
Remember the HGTV maps mentioned three paragraphs ago that were available at every business in town. Wherever you walked, you would see people holding and consulting those maps. It’s one thing for the mayor and the chamber to tell you that there are visitors from all over every day. It’s another to see it for yourself.
It makes sense. On April 23, the HGTV premiere of “Home Town Takeover” had 2 million viewers— more than NASCAR that day—and the six-episode season accumulated 14 million total viewers.
Mayor Lyn Deal reports that retail sales tax is up, as is hotel/motel tax.
Fort Morgan must be doing something right, because Wetumpka, Alabama, the first HGTV Home Town Takeover city, hired away Fort Morgan’s own chamber manager. It’s probably a very specific skill set to know how to market a small town with a built-in national audience looking to visit and experience it.
Even though Spur didn’t get selected in round 1 and round 2 of “Home Town Takeover,” given the huge audiences for HGTV in this endeavor, the cable network willprobablygobacktosubmissions atimeortwomore, and there’s always hope.
In our area, there are highly marketable opportunities that would appeal to area, regional and national audiences—from Caprock Canyons State Park with its bison herd, to the Floydada Pumpkin Days to the 100th Annual Motley-Dickens Old Settlers Rodeo and Reunion.
What do visitors see when they arrive in your hometown, and how do we map out the sites for them to experience and to spend their dollars on? Keep tuning in to this spot. We have some ideas and will be sharing them along the way.
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