BY JENNI GLENDENNING
INSTITUTE FOR RURAL JOURNALISM
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
PINEVILLE, Ky. — Tears rolled down Kitty Dougoud’s face in Pineville Thursday as the Bell County seat celebrated a milestone in a decade-long journey marked by resilience and community spirit: a $50,000 grant to enhance the pocket park in its redeveloped downtown.
“You look at where they were 10 years ago and where they are now, it’s unbelievable,” said Dougoud, who manages the Main Street Program for the Kentucky Heritage Council. “About eight years ago . . . it didn’t look much like it does today, which is fabulous.”
Thursday’s celebration was highlighted by the city’s acceptance of a $50,000 check from T-Mobile to improve its pocket park, which occupies a once-vacant lot downtown and has inspired about a dozen more around the state.
“Almost all of my communities now have pocket parks because of Pineville’s Pocket Park,” Dougoud said.
A pocket park, as defined by Dougoud, is “just a little pocket of space; typically it’s been where a building has burned or been demolished for some other reason, which leaves what we call the missing tooth, if you think about how the buildings look.” She said her program helps towns “use that vacant space to be pedestrian-friendly, and activate what we call third spaces, which are the places people gather.”
Pineville will use the T-Mobile grant to add “bathrooms, lighting, murals, and more,” Mayor Scott Madon said in an earlier interview. “We are also going to turn one of our alleys into our own Fourth Street Live, like Louisville has – on a much smaller scale, of course.”
Madon said about 800 communities applied for the latest round of 25 grants from T-Mobile, which says it is investing $25 million in 500 rural towns over five years.
The grants are for towns of fewer than 50,000. They fund projects that foster local connections, such as technology upgrades, outdoor spaces, the arts, and community centers. They award up to $50,000 for shovel-ready projects, and every applicant must include plans, a budget, a timeline, the anticipated impact, and letters of support.
Pineville is the third Kentucky Main Street town to get a T-Mobile grant, following Grayson in Carter County and Murray in Calloway County. The program is about downtown development. “We work with the historic properties and teach our directors and communities about preservation,” Dougoud said. “We’re kind of your information central to help all these communities.”
For lifelong Pineville residents like Judy Lefevers, the downtown’s redevelopment brings back memories of what it was before the catastrophic flood of the Cumberland River in 1977.
Before the flood, every storefront in Pineville was open” with “nice restaurants, S&H Green stamps, Newberry’s Five and Dime, and much more,” Lefevers, 72, recalled.
Then-Mayor Bob Madon, the father of the current mayor, declared a new motto for the town: “Pineville, We Shall Rise.”
The town is now protected by a combined floodwall and highway bypass for which Bob Madon helped get federal funding, but amid the coal industry’s decline its population has shrunk to about 1,600 from the 1970 census count of 2,817.
Lefevers, retired supervisor of the county health department, said Scott Madon is fulfilling his father’s dream because “he loved Pineville.” She added, “Pineville is a loving small community that just has the biggest heart.”
At Thursday’s event, Jennifer Amburgy of Gem City Cakes received an American Express “Backing Small Businesses” grant of $10,000. “You can use it for anything except paying employees,” Amburgy said, “so I will use the money to buy a new air conditioner, and I have already purchased a new back door” for her bakery on Kentucky Avenue.
The event also included Coca-Cola floats served by the Bell County High School Interact Club, games, food, DJ Brian O’Brien, a dog-training exhibition, and a pet parade hosted by Katie Beth Dean of Creekside Canine and the Friends of the Bell County Animal Shelter.
To see progress and gain insight into local events happening in Pineville, visit their digital channel on Facebook at Main Street Pineville or their website. To find out more and how to apply for a T-Mobile grant, go here. To find out more and how to apply for a Main Street America grant, go here.
Jenni Glendenning, a University of Kentucky Ph.D. student, is the David Hawpe Fellow in Appalachian Reporting at UK’s Institute for Rural Journalism, at jenni.glendenning@uky.edu.