Rebuilding Historic Cannelton
A look at Washington St. aka (Main St.).
Cannelton was once a beautiful town. Residents from all around Perry County flooded the streets of Cannelton, visiting the awesome stores and restaurants the town once had. Main Street held a lot of the town events like festivals, car shows, and so much more. Cannelton was a really nice town and was home to many traditions.
Cannelton’s Main Street was home to restaurants, bakeries, stores, and more. Nearly every single one of the buildings had something in it. Some of the most recent things in the buildings are a movie store (closed down in 2019), pizza restaurant, utility office, tire shop, post office (which they are thinking about closing). Currently, those are the only operating buildings on Main Street.
There are so many people, some who still live locally and others who live in neighboring counties, who are passionate about trying to fix the town. However, they are not able to because there are people and groups of people preventing them from purchasing those dilapidated buildings. These people have bought half the town and let the buildings deteriorate.
In fact, one such building has collapsed completely. That building is located right across the street from our elementary school. Many students walk to school, and all that they have to look at on their walk is all of the worn down buildings. That doesn’t help our students feel happiness or pride about themselves and where they come from.
Another building, located by the post office, is starting to fall down and seems like it will collapse at any moment. There is currently a giant hole in the back of the building. The front of the building has an awning, where kids from local schools stand and wait for their school bus to come. If this building were ever to fall, there is a possibility that it could collapse on those students.
Sooner or later, all of the buildings that are not being taken care of will collapse and the town will be nothing but dirt. So far, the city has done nothing about this matter and is allowing people to continue to neglect their current buildings, and, worse yet, purchase and ruin more buildings for as long as she can.
Hopefully, in the near future, something will change and we can rebuild this town to the best it can be. It is really sad to see how bad these buildings are falling.
There is still so much potential to rebuild our historic town and restore it to it’s former glory. However, there will come a point where our small town is beyond repair. There are many people, companies, and organizations who are fighting to restore our little town.
