COUNCIL BLUFFS GROWTH REPORT
COVER story COUNCIL BLUFFS MAYOR MATT WALSH AT TOM HANAFAN RIVER’S EDGE PARK, NEXT TO AN “UNSCULPTURE” AS PART OF THE “UNLIKE ANYWHERE ELSE” CAMPAIGN.
Q&A with Matt Walsh MAYOR OF COUNCIL BLUFFS
What do you wish everyone knew about Council Bluffs? Council Bluffs is ‘Unlike Anywhere Else on Purpose.’ We are intentionally different. Maybe you think we’re a little quirky, but we are who we are, no apologies. It’s simply a great place to live and just be yourself. What makes CB a great place to live? Council Bluffs is a friendly community with a small-town atmosphere, but our residents have easy access to those big city amenities that can make life interesting. What makes CB a great place to do business? Customer loyalty — not to mention recent state income tax revisions that now allow business owners to hold onto more of their hard-earned profits. If you could describe Council Bluffs in two words, what would they be? My hometown.
What’s your favorite CB fun fact or trivia tidbit? During our country’s nineteenth-century western migration and the gold rush that followed, Council Bluffs was the jumping-off point between eastern civilization and the wild west. It is a city rich with history. For example, at one point the Omaha-Council Bluffs Streetcar Company operated the second largest streetcar system in the entire country when only Boston had more miles of streetcar track. My favorite Council Bluffs story is that its city hall was constructed as WPA (Works Progress Administration) project in the late 1930s. The city found itself struggling to make the associated mortgage payment. Someone suggested reaching out to New Yorker Meyer Lansky for financial help. For those that don’t know, Meyer Lansky and Charles ‘Lucky’ Luciano were the architects of the modern-day American Mafia. Lansky financed Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegal, an American mobster who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip.
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