For many through travelers, Columbia represents a place to fuel up, grab something to eat and maybe spend a night or two. With community attractions occupying less than two pages in nationally recognized travel guides — Branson has spawned a number of full-length treatises — Columbia in balance does proffer an active year-round menu of athletic events, festivals and concerts and is a major magnet for shopping while offering a plethora of medical services. On the other hand, what attractions are available once a traveler hops off Exit 125, Providence Road for example? Not very much.

One recent effort to develop a specific education-oriented destination with tourism potential didn’t make it.

The spectacular failure of the YouZeum, a health science attraction in the former Federal Building, née Post Office, on Cherry Street downtown burned through several million dollars of public and private grants and funds before it went bust in what turned out to be an embarrassing failure. Although the rumble of community doubt and disapproval may still be faint but perhaps growing — no one would publicly dare question or oppose another downtown project for fear of being branded a, well, you know — a boondoggle might be in the making now that more city resources have been committed to an old house downtown with a total expenditure that has crawled above the $1.3 million mark.

Coming up short

The Columbia City Council recently appropriated $326,855 from a one-time, low seven-figure “surplus” to complete the renovation of the J.W. “Blind” Boone home on the east side of North Fourth Street. With no apparent street number visible — a violation of the city’s house-numbering ordinance — in 2000, a different mayor and City Council purchased the land and the wood-frame structure for $900,000. Set back and somewhat hidden, this house was once owned by John W. “Blind” Boone (1864-1927), a ragtime pianist of some note who grew up in Warrensburg, Mo., where he has already been honored with a statue and a city park.

When completed, the Boone home will be a combination museum and “interpretative” center to honor the well-known musical personage and acquaint present and future generations with this distinctly American musical genre. City officials aver that upon completion, the home and the resources to operate it will be assumed by the John William Boone Heritage Foundation, a not-for-profit entity, which confirms removal of this valuable center city tract from any obligation to pay property taxes. An Internet reference to this foundation draws a blank, but a funds-contributed sign in front of the home shows something in the order of $25,000 in the kitty so far, while the restoration goal ranges up to $500,000. The City of Columbia, shamed, embarrassed and no doubt frustrated over the whole affair, says “this is it” for funding and no more. Really?

This is it

Questions flourish all over the place when the Boone Home project comes under analysis as a business proposition. Let’s begin by assessing both potential and actual public interest and attendance at a facility dedicated to an admittedly specialized marginal interest in an old-time musical genre and one of its true heroes with little evidence that interest in ragtime music is growing. Then come more reality-seeking but often ugly “pro-forma” concerns that include revenue and expense projections, employment and staffing requirements, which mingle with more nebulous questions of endowment and the expectation of ongoing contributions from other private and public sector sources.

City officials can mutter “this is it” all they want, but we all know better. From a 1,001 little municipal hidey-holes will spring opportunities for contributions in a flourishing range of grants to “the arts,” “popular culture” and “recreation” to name a few. There’ll be a cornucopia of festivals for which the city finagles a “one-time” grant from its stashes to match a splurge or two from sources outside the municipal realm. How splendid! It is all so wonderful, and everyone will live happily ever knowing bucks have been thrown to assuage many layers of accumulated community guilt about our inter-racial past and all of its ugliness.

As a closing suggestion, before a single farthing more is tossed at this dubious project, let’s move the “Blind” Boone Home to Nifong Park, a vastly more practical, theme-oriented place where our past is being slowly preserved. Recalling Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village near Detroit, the automobile magnate moved dozens of structures to the multi-theme park, now in its 84th year, which proves it can be done. Our much-miniaturized “village” would include the relocated Boone Home at the city’s more assessable southeast edge, eventually becoming a magnet for tourism many times more significant than any old building downtown. Then the city would sell the present Boone Home site on North Fourth Street to a private party to return it to a tax-paying property in a win-win for all.