Paris Texas is a quiet, sorta’ sleepy, strangely unsettled town, nestled in Lamar County, an area that once was a part of Miller County, Arkansas. Today, parts of the city’s heart have stopped beating. Historically, the downtown area was the heart of the city, pumping economic blood from city limits to city limits. But it’s likely that the central economic muscle will never return.
There has been by-pass surgery of sorts, but to survive, Paris needs a new heart or a vast new miracle to get it working again.
In NE Texas, Paris is a clean air area. When folks in the Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex want a breathe of the unpolluted stuff they can visit Paris. They can purify their lungs with some deep breaths and admire the local Eiffel Tower, the Red River Valley Veterans Memorial, visit the Lamar County Historical Museum or John Chisum’s grave site or drive around and look at all the litter.
Other people, unless they have relatives here, who wander in or deliberately visit Paris, never fully quite understand why they do so –– Especially, after July 4th and on into the middle of September. Rain clouds drift along the Red River, and then off into the Land of the Razorbacks. Every year, the heat encourage locals to do strange things as they enjoy 100-degree temperatures that feel more like 110.
Saying people in Paris sweat is truly superfluous. And some don’t wait for summer to do it.
Strangely, a lot of people who live and work in North Dallas, Richardson, Plano, and other bedroom cities thrown together in northern areas of the metroplex, have never seen parts of an old town. So, when they wander into and around Paris, an old town, where most areas show it, Paris terrifies them.
Paris is blessed with numerous assets and, because of them, numerous opportunities. Maybe so many that our leadership can’t make a decision on what to do or how to do it, which keeps Paris from saving itself. It keeps looking for someone or something to do it.
The Paris Texas Chamber could … but the leadership refuses to ask HOW.
It’s a shame.
Because those assets remain unused; the opportunities are wasted.
Think not?
Then, please explain how – in 50-years or less – Paris went from the largest city in a 100-mile circle of NE Texas and SE Oklahoma, one of economic prominence and prosperity, the North Star of Texas, to the ugly, junky, weedy, litter-covered, population-losing, boarded up, tax-wasting, self-deluded mess we’re in today?
Name one Paris decision over the last 25-30-or so years that has made a significant difference in population, appearance, better-paying jobs, family incomes, community attitudes, etc. – anything beyond a stopgap measure or some project that had a limited impact?
You can, dear reader, get angry – cuss and be disgusted – but IF you’ll drive around Paris, inside the Loop you’ll see a community reeking with 3rd world results.
So, how can you honestly believe that Paris got to the shape it’s in by making intelligent decisions for community and economic improvement over the last 25-30-or so years?
Neither can we.