Wichita Falls, Texas...

 

WF once looked like this...

 

Now it looks like this...(same location)

 

 

One nice building

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once cool enough for a downtown Holiday Inn

 

Sweet reclad job

 

And another (glad to see that ugly old red brick hidden)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At least one building is occupied

 

This is good

 

Worth another photo

 

 

 

Beautiful Ohio street

 

 

 

 

Their trains are as well maintained as their buildings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just like a little NYC

Well, you made Shawnee look like Lagos compared to this town.

Wichita Falls is actually a decent little city.  They just completely 100% gave up on their downtown.  Everything is over on Kemp Blvd and the city built itslef around 82 after it was expanded.  My sister got married in Lawton OK (which truly is an awful place) and I had to spend two weeks down there.  Wichita Falls was the regional capital of culture.  When you drive into Wichita Falls from the North or East, all signs lead to 82 beckoning you to go West.  From the freeway, downtown is the obscure place off to the East.  It repels you in a way that's difficult to describe.

 

Thank you for this very accurate look at downtown Wichita Falls.  For those of you unfamiliar, this is not some obscure corner of downtown...this is downtown in its essence.

It does seem as if they just decided to forget about downtown once and for all.

Yikes.

pro thx for the explanation - makes sense.

 

if only they would have just ignored downtown a little more and not torn it to shreds…!

 

err, cool movie theater.

Wichita Falls is actually a decent little city.  They just completely 100% gave up on their downtown.  Everything is over on Kemp Blvd and the city built itself around (Hwy.) 82 after it was expanded.  My sister got married in Lawton OK (which truly is an awful place) and I had to spend two weeks down there.  Wichita Falls was the regional capital of culture.  When you drive into Wichita Falls from the North or East, all signs lead to 82 beckoning you to go West.  From the freeway, downtown is the obscure place off to the East.  It repels you in a way that's difficult to describe. Thank you for this very accurate look at downtown Wichita Falls.  For those of you unfamiliar, this is not some obscure corner of downtown...this is downtown in its essence.

 

Nice set of photos showing downtown Wichita Falls. As you mention, WF is a regional center of culture; my spouse and I are both graduates of Midwestern State University which despite its name, most would argue it is not in the Midwest. Wichita Falls had a vibrant downtown when I was a kid with locally owned department stores, and lots of mom & pop businesses. But beginning with the Parker Square Shopping Center development in the late 1950's (a precursor to the later large Sikes Center Mall) the lifeblood of downtown was slowly drained. Downtown has changed very little since the 1960's as these photos reveal. There's a high level of vacancies downtown but the busy "shopping district" along Kemp Blvd and Southwest Parkway (which intersects Kemp on the south side of town) has replaced the downtown. Population growth has been slow in WF and seems tied to the fortunes of energy exploration and production businesses. During the 1920's the population of Wichita Falls expanded exponentially as local oil field discoveries poured millions of dollars into the sleepy town established by the railroad in 1881. A building boom ensued downtown as the old postcard shows. My late grandmother came to Wichita Falls in 1919 near the peak of the oil boom and housing was so scarce she rented a converted city mule barn hastily converted to a rental house off Kemp Blvd.  Wichita Falls sits by itself near the Oklahoma border and is helped by its long standing Sheppard, AFB (a NATO pilot training facility) and the aforementioned Midwestern State U..

 

On the negative side, fresh water is so scarce (north Texas is in the midst of a multi-year drought and Lake Arrowhead, Wichita Falls's water supply, is at 25% of capacity) that local water authorities recently made the controversial decision to recycle sewer water to add to the city's very tight fresh water supplies. (hope you didn't drink the water, Ink!) No outdoor watering is allowed and all but two car washes have been mothballed and those two car washes are only open 2 days a week because they recycle most of their water. I toured lake Arrowhead a month ago and believe its entirely possible it could dry up in another year or two. Obviously, a city facing such dire water shortages is not going to experience any rapid growth.  Texas shares with California a severe fresh water shortage which is one more reason the Midwest is appealing for its abundant water resources.  Ohio could make a ton of money selling its surplus water to drought stricken parts of the country but the logistics and infrastructure required to transport water to those areas boggles the mind. Nice set of photos, Ink. 

Kinda looks like Rapid City, SD except RC looks like a bustling metropolis compared to this.

But now you have put a Glen Campbell song in my head and I must kill you...