The SFABA's History

The Shelburne Falls Area Business Association took root in the 1960s as a loose association of business owners who began to hang holiday lights, organize group advertising, welcome and encourage new businesses, and look out for the interests of the business community. Although the unique Bridge of Flowers and the Glacial Potholes drew visitors to town, growing pressures and an increasingly mobile society resulted in a number of empty storefronts by the mid-1970s. Around that time, the SFABA formally incorporated as a nonprofit chamber of commerce.

The timing of a more formal and active business association was fortunate. On top of the bad economy, the Bridge of Flowers was deteriorating. The Shelburne Falls Woman's Club [sic] had adopted this abandoned trolley bridge in 1929 and transformed it into a showcase for over 500 varieties of flowers. In 1978, the SFABA joined forces with the Woman's Club to help restore the historic bridge. With the bridge's future in jeopardy, the SFABA rallied the business community and, with the towns and several other groups, raised a $290,000 matching grant. The $580,000 project took place in 1983 and 1984. Some 30,000 visitors signed the guest register on the bridge in 2002.

Meanwhile, the village began attracting entrepreneurs and artisans. McCusker's Market opened in 1978 as West County's first natural foods store, restoring an old Odd Fellows Hall to a new life. Mole Hollow Candles, established in 1969, converted an abandoned mill on the edge of the river into a factory and retail outlet store. World-renowned glassblower Josh Simpson came to the area, drawing colleagues and apprentices to West County. The village gradually transformed from the quintessential Yankee small town to a fascinating and vital mix of the old and the new.

With the enthusiastic support of the SFABA, the towns of Buckland and Shelburne applied for and received various grants for streetscape improvement in the 1980s brought hundreds of thousands of dollars of our tax money back into the area, investing it in sorely needed streets, sidewalks, lighting, and other essentials. In 1986, the village was granted status as a historic landmark.

In the early 1990s, the SFABA joined with the nonprofit Shelburne Falls Area Civic Beautification Association to raise capital to renovate the former village firehouse and jail to accommodate the Village Information Center. A combination of grants and private contributions brought the $75,000 project to completion, restoring a building of significant historic interest and providing a waystation (with -- hallelujah! -- public restrooms) for thousands of visitors. The Civic Beautification Association maintains the VIC and coordinates the volunteer staff, who welcome and guide some 12,000 visitors each season.

The early 1990s brought obstacles to Shelburne Falls that might have been devastating. The iron bridge over the Deerfield that links the Shelburne and Buckland sides of the Village was closed for a year and refurbished. The Shelburne Falls Supermarket -- an anchor store in the heart of the village -- closed. The repaving of Route 2 in 1993 further depressed commerce. The SFABA responded with an aggressive marketing campaign -- and with an initative that would take the village and the association to the next level.

In 1994, the SFABA collaborated with the towns of Buckland and Shelburne and received a Downtown Partnership grant from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Community Development. Designed with the assumption that a downtown requires management oversight that reflects the joint needs of business and government, this program provided three-year funding for a "village manager" who could provide full-time, professional service. In 1995, Andrew Baker was hired under the program as the SFABA's first executive director and the program manager for the Shelburne Falls Village Partnership. This program has not only brought together the business community and town government, it has also helped the town officials of Buckland and the Shelburne work more closely and cooperatively with each other. Of the twenty-five or so similar Village Partnerships established in this state program, ours is the only one still functioning today, years after the grant funding tapered to zero. The Partnership is funded by small allocations from the two towns and continues to be administered by the SFABA.

With the help of a full-time executive director, the SFABA successfully administered over $1 million of federal and state monies for streetscape improvements, marketing studies, sign and facade programs, street and sidewalk refurbishment, technical assistance consulting for new businesses, wayfinding signage, parking studies, and a number of other programs and services that would have strained the resources of our volunteer board of directors.

In 2002, Art Schwenger was hired as the organization's second executive director, and the organization in the past few years has shifted to helping citizens and visitors discover and enjoy the newly spruced-up Shelburne Falls. The SFABA has a proud history of building consensus, trying new ideas, and -- this is critical -- not balking at the impossible. In these uncertain times, those qualities are needed more than ever for our businesses to survive and to thrive. We hope you'll join us, contribute ideas, energy, time, and resources to our programs, and help us carry on the legacy of an extraordinary organization.