Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part series on the fictional town of Mayberry and its relation to Wilmore.

While Mayberry may have been the setting for “The Andy Griffith Show,” and it may have been modeled after Mt. Airy, N.C., and it may be the pseudonym for small towns all across America, it was still a fictional town. It was actually a set in Culver City, Calif., known as the Forty Acres Backlot.

According to Jake Easton of Radok News, it was also the set for several other television shows including The Adventures of Superman, Ozzie and Harriet, Hogan’s Heros and Batman. A lot of work went into that set to transform it into the perfect small town.

Harold Rainwater, the mayor of Wilmore, knows all too well the work that goes into creating Mayberry. His job is to deal with the difficulties and threats to his town in a world that grows more fast-paced by the day. He knows he cannot afford to live in the 1960s anymore.

“What we’re trying to do is capture the values of that time,” he said. “It’s hard to be small and progressive. It’s hard to be small and pay your bills. It’s hard to be small and thought of with respect.”

Small-town struggles

One of the biggest obstacles that Wilmore faces, Rainwater said, is the economy. The city of Wilmore has a $4 million working budget, and bringing in enough revenue is a constant struggle.

“The biggest issue is creating enough money, finding enough money every year to pay the bills,” Rainwater said. “That’s unfortunately what drives most of my energy. I’ve challenged, and (councilman) Jim Brumfield has probably led that challenge, that we cut costs as much as we can before we raise rates.”

That strategy, Rainwater said, has worked well in keeping costs low for the consumer, especially the minimum users, but the city has taken a strong hit in the wallet.

“Part of the dilemma is nobody called and asked if it was OK if I raise the gasoline for your trucks that pick up the garbage,” he said. “But my community and most of my council are not in favor of rate increase because they are so protective of the consumer, they don’t want to pass on that cost. But we’re eating that every year.”

One area that the city relies heavily on for revenue is the payroll tax. Three of the eight largest employers in Jessamine County are in Wilmore — Asbury College, Asbury Theological Seminary and Thomson-Hood Veterans Center. After those three, however, the town’s businesses become small and hard to protect.

“I think that’s still a struggle,” Rainwater said. “I’ve been a business owner in this town. I owned a restaurant and a westernwear store, and my parents had dime stores and different businesses. They’re all past tense.”

Some of the Wilmore businesses — such as Fitch’s IGA and Solomon’s Porch — have been around for some time, while several others are newer to town, and those buildings are experiencing high turnover rates.

“Right now we have as close to all the business fronts being full as we have had in a long time, but I don’t know how long they’ll stay there,” Rainwater said. “They take a positive mark, and they smile and take pride in their community, but the Wal-Marts of the world kill small business. You can love them or you can hate them, but they’re death on small business in small towns.”

Maintaining Mayberry

Twenty years ago, Johnny Fitch, one of the co-owners of the IGA, came to Rainwater with an idea on how to promote downtown business in Wilmore. The city began holding festivals at Christmas and the Fourth of July that were free to the businesses and free to the people who attended. That turned into Wilmore’s Old Fashioned Christmas and the Festival of the Fourth, two of the largest events in Jessamine County. The success of those two festivals spawned other showcases such as Fall Festival and the Stonebridge Concert Series, all of which aim to bring people downtown.

“That’s important to us because that creates a pride in the town, and hopefully it brings somebody who wants to invest in the business of the town,” Rainwater said.

Those festivals are a vital component in the fight to maintain the Mayberry feel in Wilmore. Coupled with the town’s presentation — cleanliness, decoration, atmosphere — they bring in the spirit of small-town America.

“If a visitor sees it, it brings 400 new freshmen kids in here next week,” Rainwater said of the presentation of the town. “That’s of value to the community. Pride in the community, cleanliness of the community, trying to improve the community, try to make it pretty — make it a place that you are proud to say ‘I live in Wilmore.’”

In the end, Rainwater said, it’s all about the values that the town has that makes it endearing, especially to visitors.

“We want to capture the values that Andy told about and Opie showed and Barney showed and the town showed,” he said. “I’m trying to capture the best of Wilmore and keep it progressively moving forward to where it can stay small with things we want to stay small, where you still know your neighbor, where you still feel safe to walk across the street, where you still take pride in the family. We want all of those goosebump feelings that I think Mayberry represented.”