When W. J. Albertson walks downtown, he can still picture the Aledo of his childhood — a busy county seat where a kid on a bike could stop at the store after school and know nearly every person he saw on the way there.
“In the late ’80s, the downtown was a thriving place to be,” he recalls. “We had the JCPenney and all kinds of mom-and-pop shops… just had kind of that small-town feeling when we were growing up.”
Today, Aledo, Ill., boasts about 3,700 residents, nearly a fourth of the roughly 16,000 residents in the county of Mercer. The economy there leans heavily on corn, soybeans and cattle. After decades of consolidation and the shock of the 2008-09 financial crisis — including the failure of a local bank — the core of the town hollowed out.
By 2017, when Albertson and his wife started coming back to the small farming community to help aging parents and grandparents, the contrast with his childhood memories was stark.
“We saw Aledo in a state that, you know, it hurt,” he says.
What has followed since then is a methodical effort — led by Albertson and backed by city hall, nonprofit organizations, various companies and local individuals — to make this little town 30 minutes south of the Quad Cities a vibrant community once again.
Saving The Carnegie, Setting A Tone
While 39% of the country’s population lives in cities of 50,000 or more, the United States remains a nation of mostly smaller communities. Of approximately 19,500 incorporated places, about 75% had fewer than 5,000 people in 2023 and nearly 33% had fewer than 500. Many, like Aledo, are looking for ways to develop more economic prosperity for members of their communities.
For Aledo, one of the first major steps forward came in 2016 when its downtown was added to the National Park Service’s list of historic districts. About 80 buildings fell under the new designation, opening the door to federal and state rehabilitation tax credits.
“We started talking, how can we use that National Park designation, use the tax credits… to take one of these buildings and use it as a model example, to fix it up and become a viable business,” he told Andrew McCrea during a recent episode of Farming The Countryside.
The opportunity — and the urgency — sharpened in the fall of 2019. Aledo’s historic Carnegie Library, a 100-year-old brick landmark downtown, went up for auction with a starting bid of $12,000. Without an elevator or basic accessibility, the appraisal said the building’s “highest and best use” was demolition.
Albertson and his partners moved quickly to acquire the building and lined it up as a tax-credit project. The plan was to show, in one visible example, that historic status and incentives could finance a modern use.
They did not, he admits, have guarantees going into the purchase that would be the outcome.
“It was a little bit of blind faith… God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called. We were being equipped, I guess, and trying to figure out how do we make this work,” Albertson says.
Work on restoring the library began in March 2020. Within days, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. At first, it looked like disastrous timing.
Then, with millions of Americans suddenly working from home, the partners’ vision for the building shifted, a lemons-to-lemonade moment.
“It opened up an opportunity for us to make the library a place for remote workers, and (we brought) fiber access to the facility,” Albertson says.
As people returned to the small town to be near family while logging in to jobs elsewhere, the old library began to serve as a job center and co-working hub — providing a new reason to be downtown.
Needed: Someplace To Call Home
The pandemic-era remote work shift exposed a weak spot for Aledo: housing. It was hard to recruit or retain workers downtown if there was nowhere for them to live.
A partial answer was to refurbish an empty junior high school building across from the Carnegie Library — the same school Albertson and his wife had attended, vacant for roughly two decades. It went into redevelopment for 30 residential units, marketed as workforce housing just steps from Main Street.
“That school with the 30 residential (apartments) right in the downtown is now the largest downtown project that’s ever happened in Mercer County, like financially,” he says.
The project cost around $12 million and was funded mostly through the Illinois Historic Preservation Office, The National Parks Service and through tax incentives from the city of Aledo.
Another answer to the town’s housing needs was over everyone’s head – literally. Many older commercial buildings downtown had unused upper floors. Those second and third stories were converted into apartments and short-term rentals — functioning as a de facto hotel in a town too small to support a traditional one.
“They’ve really become kind of like an Airbnb overnight stay, and revenue that we hadn’t anticipated, for families returning for weddings, funerals, reunions and local festivals,” Albertson says.
Opera House Lights, Main Street Muscle
As the library and housing projects moved forward, the Aledo Opera House emerged as a cultural anchor. The historic venue, part of the downtown district, was renovated without using tax credits, which gave restorers more flexibility on items like windows and finishes but kept its vintage charm. The facility featured space for a stage, movie showings, and other community activities.
On any given weekend, that could mean live music – from country to jazz. It also hosts school and community fundraisers, like the high school art auction, where local artwork is sold on stage.
“It’s really a multi-purpose venue,” Albertson says.
The opera house was not the only sign of renewed energy downtown. The local country radio station, WRMJ, launched in 1979 and woven into the fabric of local rural life, moved into a refreshed, glass-fronted studio overlooking the town.
Visitors, Data — And A Date-Night Steakhouse
Nonprofit groups have also stepped into the mix of people working to revitalize Aledo. MerCo, a local destination-marketing organization, works to draw outsiders into Mercer County for events such as Aledo’s Rhubarb Festival, held the first weekend in June, and other seasonal celebrations.
Albertson says the Aledo revitalizers have often looked to Galena, Ill., as a benchmark for progress. Galena is a smaller town by population, but one that welcomes about a million visitors annually and has generated sales tax revenue roughly 10 times that of Aledo.
“It’s not about doubling your size as a community necessarily,” Albertson says. “It’s about bringing others to experience your community, bringing in those dollars in from a sales tax standpoint that can further elevate the town.”
As community members have worked to recruit new businesses, Albertson has leaned on a surprising tool: artificial intelligence (AI).
Once skeptical, he has come to call AI a useful “thought partner.” Through its use, Albertson says they have learned about various business types that would work in their community, those that have worked elsewhere.
Despite the momentum, Albertson sees some gaps in the type of businesses Aledo has been able to draw. One of the significant ones, in his opinion, is a “date-night restaurant” — a sit-down steakhouse-style option that would fit well in the community and keep local dollars close to home.
“My biggest goal right now is recruiting a restaurant, a date night restaurant, that complements other things we have going on,” he says.
First, though, Albertson says he knows the community must figure out what kind of ongoing revenue is needed to recruit a restaurant that can survive in the town.
‘Raise Your Hand And Be Involved’
Albertson still has what he calls his “real job” outside the community projects. The downtown work, he says, is his primary side hustle, a job rooted in family history and a sense of responsibility.
He’s quick to point out that the turnaround has not been his success alone. Local farmers, business owners, lenders, educators and city officials have all played roles. Albertson calls out Western Illinois University in Macomb for extra recognition. The school has assigned a staffer who helps aspiring entrepreneurs in Aledo build business plans before they sign a lease.
“They’ll come walk side by side, building a business plan, and kind of helping those individuals see before they jump in, here’s what this is going to look like,” Albertson says. “It’s so great that all these other entities in the community are coming alongside businesses to make sure we can make this successful.”
For people in other towns looking at empty storefronts and wondering what to do, his advice is simple and decidedly low-tech.
“Just get involved with your community,” he says. “Whether it’s an event planning coordinator, maybe there’s a downtown development group. Go to your city council meetings… It doesn’t have to be financial. We’re always looking for volunteers.”
He sums up Aledo’s guiding philosophy in a short formula that blends civic pride and faith.
“We kind of like to say, metaphorically, with our faith, broken things plus love equals restoration,” Albertson says.
On a summer weekend, with music drifting from the Opera House, visitors in for the Rhubarb Festival or a family reunion and with lights glowing from upstairs apartments that once sat dark, that restoration is increasingly visible in the small farming community of Aledo.
Catch the conversation between Albertson and McCrea on Farming The Countryside here:
