Got this link from Don Bailey by way of Georgia Keim. It looks as though Hazard, Nebraska /a> has it’s own home page—and it is interesting! So, I started thinking. Why couldn’t Davenport’s home page be more interesting?
Davenport, Nebraska also has a home page. But there is a difference. Davenport’s page is more of an Outpost on the Web whereas Hazard’s really is a Home Page. You get a sense of the people and the town on the Hazard page. Davenport’s page takes the Joe Friday approach—“Just the facts, Ma’am.” Even then, it seems to leave out quite a few “facts.”
Of course, Davenport’s is better than Carleton’s page—Carleton doesn’t have one that I can tell. The thing about it is that both of these communities have interesting histories. For instance, did you know that the first Gideon Bible to be placed in a hotel was placed in the Voigt Hotel in Davenport, Nebraska? Did you know that the Little Blue Speller was created by an alumnus of Davenport High School? I’m just wondering if perhaps information from pages like this one and this one. In fact, I think Rick Henkel even wrote a history of Davenport some years back.
These are the types of value-added content I think would make city and town web pages much more interesting. Take, for instance, this extended quotation from the Grand Island Independent:
Other correspondence has come from students in Japan and Brazil, for example, who have researched Hazard for college and high school classes. Steve Capellen said the site is also visited frequently by people looking for information on relatives who may have lived in the area at one time.
Faye Wendt, who’s lived in Hazard for over 50 years and who has access to the Internet, answers many such inquiries submitted by visitors to the site. She said she logs on to the site at least twice a week and has watched it grow from the beginning.
“I don’t think there are many little towns around with a Web site like we have,” she said. “It pulls the community together. It makes the community interested in what’s going on.”
“It’s even better than I dreamt it would have ever been,” Elaine Capellen said of the site. “I’ve enjoyed hearing from people who used to live here and from people afar.”
In addition, such content might also put Davenport and Carleton on the cyber-map.
What do you think? Please leave your comment by clicking on the “Post Comment” button below.