By Joshua Schuetz
Signage is the face a community puts forth to the world. For small communities like Murdock, signage is key to attracting people to visit town, shop and tour points of interest.
CEDA team member Laura Mitteness helped the city obtain $20,000 in funding to get a new city sign for the community and renovate city hall’s bathrooms to be more accessible and usable for members of the public.
“The sign they had before needed an overhaul-it hadn’t been updated in 25 years; it was outdated, and didn’t light up at night so travelers could see what city they were in,” she said. “With this project, the goal was really to invite more people to come to town.”
As it happened, an opportunity arose to acquire new signage and renovate city hall’s bathrooms to be more accessible to the public. Swift County established a grant program aimed at encouraging tourism.
Mitteness applied for the grant on Murdock’s behalf and served as project manager for both projects. “We turned in the grant on December 29th, just after Christmas, and the work was just completed this spring,” she said. “In addition to the $20,000 from Swift County, we received $3,000 in funds from Pioneer Seeds.”
The sign is an important advertisement for the community, since it sits alongside Minnesota State Highway 12, which passes through the center of the city.
Mitteness said while the city does want to promote tourism and business, another goal is making sure people from around the area keep Murdock in mind when looking for a place to live in the future. The city’s elementary school is seeing an increase in enrollment, something community members hope may lead to more families moving to town in future years.
“We want the city to be more inviting to everyone, so in addition to the tourism aspect, we have a resident recruitment angle as well,” she said.