Renovation = Beloit

Revived industry, Clydesdales, a storytelling barber and farm-to-mason-jar dining: It all happens in Beloit.

When was your last visit to Beloit? Did you just say, “Where exactly is Beloit?” You sound like me before my week-long “Around the Corner with John McGivern” shoot during the summer of 2016. My knowledge of this community was vague at best. I presumed that since this city was once the company town of Beloit Iron Works, and since that company no longer exists, Beloit was going to be the Gary, Indiana, of Wisconsin! I was sure we would find a community that used to have an identity and we would now spend the week remembering what Beloit was… and not find anything that Beloit can say it is today.

What the hell was I thinking? I am such an idiot. We arrived in downtown Beloit at noon on a Tuesday in late June and could not find a parking space. COULD NOT FIND A PARKING SPACE... The crowded downtown street was a loud, bold statement of what Beloit is today.

If the busy downtown did not tell me enough, then my first interview did. Beloit native and former Miss Wisconsin and current state Secretary of Tourism Stephanie Klett is the best resource to all things Beloit, a community of 37,000 people. We met Stephanie in Riverside Park, a downtown destination developed in the 1930s and a go-to place for generations. We could not get through the interview without someone yelling “Hello!” from a passing car or people stopping to thank her for all she does, both for Beloit and for our state.

Iron Works, founded in the 1800s, was built on the west side of the Rock River, and downtown Beloit grew up around it. The factory closed its doors in 1999.

When you look at Beloit today, its success is based on the work of community visionaries and activists who were and are committed to Beloit’s tomorrow. We could not come to this town without talking with Diane Hendricks, whose business, ABC Supply, is based in Beloit and who raised her seven kids in this community. It’s because of her and her late husband’s unending support that downtown is what it is today. With the renovation and re-imagining of the Beloit Corp., her family led the vision of what is happening in Beloit. We met at her home outside the stables that house her three Clydesdales. Have you ever stood next to a Clydesdale? YIKES...