The High Plains area has harnessed the wind for water,
for energy and for cooling homes. Now it will corral air power
for tourism dollars.
A consortium of cities, businesses and agencies in Oklahoma
and Texas has launched a travel project that interprets the
history of wind energy along a 600-mile corridor from Norman,
Okla., to Lubbock.
Seth Davidson, an area tourism promoter based in Miami,
said the trail will allow people to get in touch with an
important part of this area's history: the development of
technological tools to find life-giving water.
And, "we get to bring people from all over the world and
urban areas into small towns," he said. "We get to bring
people into our museum collections."
The Wind Power Trail meanders through the Oklahoma towns of
Lawton, Norman, Elk City, Woodward and Shattuck and the Texas
towns of Spearman, Canyon, Plainview and Lubbock.
A trail map and an audio interpretative compact disk will
be available by May 31 - after all interested towns have their
wind-energy resources assessed and join the trail.
Davidson and Gina Gillispie of the Spearman Chamber of
Commerce, talked about windmill promotion over a meal at the
Panhandle Diner in Spearman. The two wanted to find a way to
both restore vintage windmills and develop tourism in rural
Texas.
"(The conversation) evolved into a way to promote wind
energy for the utility companies, as well as a way to bring
outside dollars into a much broader area," Davidson said.
Throughout the fall, Davidson and Gillispie traveled into
Oklahoma, first hooking Shattuck and Elk City into the
project.
Then
Davidson got in touch with John Armour at the Lubbock Chamber
of Commerce, who quickly laid down resources for the project.
Armour took over the financial part of the $40,000 project and
also got rural towns along the north-south corridor of the
Texas Panhandle involved.
Towns like Plainview, whose convention and visitors bureau
contributed $1,000 to the project last fall, said Brian
Thomas, the bureau's director.
"It won't cure our tourism problems, but it will help," he
said. "It will especially help with RV (recreational vehicle)
drivers, especially with the drive north and south. It will
give them something else to do."
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