What began as a white-walled storage room just two years ago has transformed into a thriving community hub throughout the last two years, where a few recent residents worked with longtime community members to accomplish it.
About four years ago, David Gentry moved to Jamestown from Colorado and immediately joined in on the community's offered activities and groups. That's where he began to learn more about the small town.
“Every community needs a spark plug,” Gentry said. “At one point in time, Jamestown was the center of not only Cloud County but also the center of North Central Kansas.”
Now, Gentry's goal is to bring a little of that historic big-city feel back to Jamestown. One of the groups he joined is the Four Corners Senior Citizens and began brewing the idea of moving the group's meeting location into the community room at the Jamestown Activity Center in the middle of town.
According to Gentry, the room needed a little bit of refreshing to really stand out to the community.
“It had no life, no character. We decided to change that,” Gentry said. “So, we redecorated it, put in some cabinets, and of course, had Kim do the mural.”
That artist, Kim Marshall, is also a recent Jamestown resident from her own Jamestown, North Dakota. According to Marshall, as she ages the winters in North Dakota have become too painful for her chronic joint pain, so she decided to spend her winters in Jamestown, Kansas about two years ago.
During her first winter in Kansas, she found herself looking to become involved in the community and in her search she found Gentry, who, at the time, was the director of the library. After a few conversations in the library and hearing more about Gentry's project, she decided to join in and offer her artistic talents to spruce up the plain white walls.
“We just got talking and stuff, and that's how the mural came about,” Marshall said. “I've put about 250 hours into it probably, and that's research and painting.”
Marshall finished the mural this past winter, which is when she accomplished most of the work for the large painting. It features familiar scenes of rural Cloud County, including an antique farm truck, an Angus cow and the significant points of Jamestown's history.
These scenes and history that Marshall learned came from a few other community members who spent time driving her around and showing her significant parts of Jamestown and the surrounding area.
“I'd listen when they would talk about stories in Jamestown. The pickup that's in the mural was from somebody talking about the pickup that was in the field that they remembered,” Marshall said. “It was nice to have input from the senior citizens and others.”
While the mural compliments the space today, Gentry and other Jamestown residents tirelessly laid the groundwork to draw people into the community space while Marshall finished the artwork. Throughout the last two years, Gentry said that the senior citizens group among others have organized and hosted multiple recurring activities in the community room.
Now, the activity center sees events, regular meetups and Friday night hangouts each week. Gentry said that when he first moved to Jamestown, it was daunting to join in on the small town's community, but after putting in a little effort, locals seemed to understand Gentry's intentions.
“It's important to establish the community pride and participation,” Gentry said. “It takes a little time to be accepted in a small town like Jamestown, but once they see the results, they're 100% on board.”
Gentry said he hopes to continue bringing new opportunities for connection in Jamestown, while Marshall said she enjoyed getting to be a small part of her new winter home's future.
