Earlier this year, Jamie Pierce was working to install the Potosi history mural on the backside of the Potosi Municipal Building. As he was raising the large 10-foot panels into place to make the 48-foot wide mural, a couple of family members of the Schumacher family, who were intertwined with the original incarnation of the Potosi Brewery, stopped by and chatted and took some pictures of the new installation.

Ever since the mural went in, dozens upon dozens of people stopped to take a look, and get some information from the adjacent kiosk, getting to know more of the offerings in the region.

That was just what the group behind the mural had in mind when they raised money for it, and it is paying off.

The Potosi Downtown Revitalization Committee has been working for three years on trying to make sure more of the 80-100,000 people who drive through the community stop, and not just at the Potosi Brewery and museum, but at other sites as well.

With the longest Main Street, the group wanted to figure out a way to get more people to stop, and part of their focus was to get people to stop in the downtown area, where there are some empty storefronts.

That led to the idea to utilize the wall on the Municipal Building. First, however, it needed to be uncovered - a salt shed and the imposing bluff were impeding on the building.

This was also a structure problem - as they removed the shed, they found some areas that needed rapids to the building, and the bluff has long been the suspected cause of the water infiltration of the building, including the Schreiner Memorial Library Potosi Annex.

The bluff was cut back, and the mural project helped shore up the wall.

“The Municipal Building needed some exterior work regardless, so this helped preserve the building facade as well as gave them a canvas in which to put the project on,” said Pierce, who got involved being a resident who happened to start a graphics company, A& E Designs, so that his daughter could start working in a field she planned on studying when she got older.

The project became one that gathered like minds together who saw the job as more than a job, but a cause for the Potosi community.

Gary David, a member ofd the community, got two friends involved, David Palmer and Gary Olson from Dubuque, involved in the creation of the design of the mural.

With such a rich history, it was a difficult time to not only gather different images, but also edit them so that it could tell a cohesive visual story without becoming too bogged down.

“We did a lot of research,” David said of the project, and noted how many faces of families from Potosi’s past are on that mural, and how their descendants work to point out who is who on the mural.

David also got his friends, the Sinno family, who created the photo book Scenic Treasures of the Mississippi to let them use one of their vista images for the contemporary look of the area as part of the mural.

Larry Kalina, one of the other members of the committee, noted how much the community has been supportive of their project. In addition to a Stoll Family Foundation grant they received in their first year, the project has collected, in total approximately $83,000. They have done that with donations, as well as fundraisers, including bake sales, the farmers market during the summer, and other items.

Kalina also got his daughter involved to help design items for the kiosk.

Potosi High School students planted flowers around the bluff which should sprout in the spring.

“People saw something needed to get done,” Kalina said of the outpouring of support.

Committee member Frank Fiorenza stated that not one taxpayer dollar has gone into this project. Sharon Mat h i a s, a member of the committee who lives near the Municipal Building, said the impact since the mural has been immediate. One Saturday alone she counted 23 people who stopped.

David noted how important it is for the community to be proactive in getting people to stop, as the economy for Potosi, much like many small communities in rural Wisconsin, has moved away from being predominately agricultural, to seeing tourism grow and grow in importance.

He noted that was one of the reasons that people in the community began working on the brewery project more than two decades ago, and it drives them today with the mural and other projects. The group will be working on new signage to point people in the direction of attractions for next summer tourism season.

Kalina noted that since they began, three businesses moved into open storefronts in Potosi, and they want to make sure those businesses thrive, and more join them.

Firorenza said that the kiosk and mural have pointed more in the direction of those businesses, like the couple he met who stopped at the mural from Colorado earlier in the fall. They saw the mural, went to the kiosk, and found out about places to stop.

Exactly what they wanted it to do.