![]() It’s a role-reversal for a city like Delavan which, in most cases, would be a potential stop on a national political reporter’s journey to discover the real people of Trump country. She had never heard of Cheddar, but was convinced by Revolution CEO Mark de Souza to make an appearance. Skinner, as the mayor of Delavan, has seen her demand as an interview subject on the rise since the city welcomed Revolution in 2015. How, in this conservative city of less than 2,000 people, is cannabis buoying the economy and, perhaps, making Delavan the poster child for a surviving small-town Main Street?Īs Liz Skinner sat down in the city council room on Locust Street she was beginning the first of two media engagements for the day: one with the Pekin Daily Times, the other with Cheddar media, a national outlet that focuses on live video content, which can be viewed online and at fuel pumps across the country. That Delavan could go from modern ghost town to modern boomtown has people in the city of just over 1,500 excited again. Revolution currently has 83 employees, and officials project that the company will employ upward of 300 in the coming years, a potential 20% increase in the city’s population if Delavan-based employees decide to live where they work. (The company was formerly known as Revolution Enterprises.) ![]() The headline reads: “Cannabis Boomtown."ĭelavan, thanks to Revolution Global, a multi-state cannabis distribution company now headquartered in the city, has brought in new jobs, more money and a vastly improved outlook. Locust Street was on the verge of becoming a ghost town, but a Chicago Sun-Times article taped to a storefront window reveals hope for the future. It didn’t.Ī new distillery was fully outfitted and on the verge of beginning operations, but shuttered before even a soft opening.ĭelavan was becoming merely another vignette in the story of modern small town America: businesses were leaving, the population was aging, and, unfortunately, after the city’s last remaining grocery store burned to the ground in 2014, Delavan became a food desert. He promised the other Mathers family operation, The Exchange, would remain open. ![]() Then, the restaurant moved to Peoria after founder Libby Mathers’ son, Tom, took over operations. There was a time just a few years ago when The Harvest Cafe was a destination for fine-dining enthusiasts across the state. Delavan’s Locust Street wasn’t always so empty. ![]()
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