BUSINESS NEWS
A local man’s love of history is on display at Perks Coffee Shop.
“I’m always looking for historical memorabilia and have a standing ‘Great Bend’ search on eBay,” Ron Weathers said, “I’m always interested in Great Bend history.”
So when he saw a placemat from the Zarah Hotel Coffee Shop, dated Oct. 13, 1948, he jumped on it.
“It had been in a scrapbook documenting a trip they took to Great Bend in 1948, according to notes on the photo,” Weathers said. “Now, you document your trips by taking photos, but in a time like this, you weren’t bombarded with what everyone else was doing. There are a handful of things on a trip that are memorable, and this guy saved this piece of our history because this place made such an impression on this guy that he saved it for 76 years.”
Weathers said someone must have made that stay very memorable in order for the man to have utilized an entire page of a scrapbook for it.
“A town has to make a good impression,” Weathers said. “It could be the murals, the look, a waitress who was kind to you; it’s all about impressions.”
Weathers knows all about impressions as he owned a hotel and apartments while in New Mexico.
“To really come back and see what is going on: the façade projects, downtown looks amazing, the Final Fridays, the lofts…the revitalization of Great Bend and downtown is really impressive,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of places where downtown is dried up and malls have taken their places. I like to see the younger generations putting the time and effort into downtown.”
Weathers is originally from Great Bend but was gone for 30 years before family called him back.
“I sold a business and moved back to be closer to Dad, who is getting older,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who you are, when you move away, home will always eventually call you back.’”
The history of the Zarah Hotel Coffee Shop is widely unknown, but Perks is in the historic Zarah Hotel so Weathers felt it was the perfect place to display the historic place mat.
He contacted Mark Mingenback with MyTown on Facebook and sent him a picture of the placement to see if Perks would be interested in it. He asked that it be displayed because of the historical significance.
“I have a habit of buying really cool things and then I end up putting them in a drawer,” he said. “This placement has spent its entire life in a book, not seeing the light of day. It deserves to be enjoyed.”