Cody – “A Town Too Tough To Die”

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The little village of Cody, Nebraska was, at last check, 154 residents strong. And I stress strong as their town motto is “A Town Too Tough To Die”. However, the word “Town” may not be the correct word to use in that phrase as “community” is more apropos. Cody is a community of people living and working together to keep a rural town alive.

Cody – “A Town Too Tough To Die”

By Ammodramus CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, from Wikimedia Commons

Growth and Decline

Much like many other towns in the Midwest, Cody was platted as a stop along a railway running through northern Nebraska. Contrary to what some may believe, Cody was not named after “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Actually, it was named after railroad crew foreman Thomas Cody, who’s shack served as the communications hub until a post office was set up in the railroad depot. So when messages were sent out to that stop along the line, they were sent to Cody. Hence, when the town was platted in 1886, they named it Cody.

Cody was truly a Wild West type of town early on with stories of murders, arson, gambling, and bootlegging. The town would go through a boom phase in the last 1800s through the early 1900s, topping out with a population of 428 in 1920.

However, like so many rural Midwestern towns, Cody was hurt by the rise of the automobile and the interstate road system. Eventually the railroad abandoned the line and much of it has now become the Cowboy Trial. The farm crisis of the 1980’s compounded the struggles Cody and other small communities throughout the Midwest. Over the decades, Cody would watch the slow decline of its population to its current level of 154 residents.

The town is now so small that Google Streetview just drove by the community. You cannot explore the community through this popular visual exploration aspect of Google Maps. Yet they’ll explore every nook and cranny of a metro area.

But those who still reside in and around Cody are fiercely loyal to it. The Ada Adamson Community Hall was a gift to the community in 1942. The communitys parks are well kept. And the Town’s website includes several professional-level photos that provide a vivid window into daily life in the community.

Loss of the Grocery Store

As population declines, businesses start to close down or pack up shop and move to more profitable locations in another town. Over the years this slowly happened in Cody as the community lost a number of services to other communities. Eventually Cody would lose one of it’s most important services, its grocery store.

For more than 10 years, residents and ranch families living in and around Cody, NE had to drive 38 miles east to Valentine to buy groceries as basic as milk and bread.

A Unique Idea

All too often the loss of a town’s grocery store becomes a community’s death knell, the sign that the town is on the way out. But not Cody, not this little town of 154. In 2008 the town banded together to bring back the grocery store, but not as a profit-making enterprise for whoever owned it. The grocery store was brought back as a hands-on learning tool for students, while providing a much needed service to residents.

A local nonprofit group called Cowboy GRIT, an acronym for Growing, Revitalizing, Investing and Teaching, came up with the concept. What makes this steering committee unique is that it consists of mostly students from Cody-Kilgore United Schools.

Overall, the market was developed as a community partnership involving a student steering committee, Cowboy GRIT, Inc.; the Village of Cody; Cody-Kilgore Unified Schools; local volunteers; and donors. The USDA and the Sherwood Foundation were among groups that provided start-up funding; the Center for Rural Affairs helped with planning.

The Finish Product

In 2013 the 3,500 square-foot Circle C Market was constructed through the help of community volunteers, grants, and donations.

Cody-Kilgore students of all ages have been involved with the Circle-C Market project since its inception. They stock the shelves, work the checkout lines, analyze finances, and update the store’s website. Although the store is a non-profit, the residents of Cody understand that it couldn’t continue to operate in a self-sustaining manner if it weren’t for the students. But it is not just the students, there are numerous hours of commitment from volunteers from the school’s faculty and community leaders. It is a true community-wide commitment.

More information about the Circle C Market’s history can be found on the market’s website.  The website also includes the photos, recipes, videos about it, and health tips from the students.

The efforts of those involved in the Circle C in Cody are a shining example of what communities in Nebraska can do and planners can be the game changers, the help break those barriers to do something great in your communities.