Tribune editorial board

Walk around the streets of Ironton's downtown and just soak in all the sights. Although a little dirt may obscure it slightly and perhaps a little disrepair may distract a bit, Ironton was once a very pretty town.

The streets were lined with buildings constructed by men with vision. Men, who made their fortunes by scratching coal and iron ore out of the land, formed Ironton.

Ironton, and many of the other towns and villages in Lawrence County, were once populated by visionaries.

Unfortunately, it seems many of them are gone.

Perhaps they left with some of the heavy industry. Perhaps they've simply become discouraged or complacent.

At a recent leadership conference, a speaker challenged participants to "think big." It seems simple enough, but too often thinking big becomes clouded with politics and other distracting factors.

Why hasn't the city or county tapped into the area's enormous tourism potential? Oddly enough, for the former leader in the production of pig iron, Ironton, to our knowledge, doesn't have a working furnace to show visitors how they operated. Wouldn't Ironmaster Days take on a completely new level of attraction if it centered on such a display?

How could we make our county become the restaurant destination place in the Tri-State? We have the buildings; we just need to transform them.

Could we utilize the historic buildings downtown to create affordable middle-income housing for the area? What would it take? Where are the houses of tomorrow being built?

Lots of questions, but little answers. The answers come as they have for centuries, from society's visionaries.

So where are those visionaries now? We believe they exist and we believe they are out there, most likely already living within our county. But how do we wake them up and get them to stand up and begin talking? Perhaps each of us could, this week, spend a few minutes to start up a conversation. In the conversation, let's ask ourselves, "What could we do here? What would make this place even better?"

It can't hurt and you might be surprised by the conversation that ensues.