Back in Van Horn, Means makes the trip into Van Horn regularly to buy groceries for his family and to fill up his truck with gas. He says he’s got nothing against Bezos and Blue Origin — the space company’s activities haven’t disturbed his cattle, for one thing — and he thinks over time county tax revenue from Blue Origin will benefit the town.
But that’s pretty much where the space-age boom stops for Van Horn as Means sees it. If anything, Blue Origin’s presence has caused the city’s annual budget to take a hit. Historically, Van Horn had been a low- and moderate-income town that qualified for state and federal grants to help pay for infrastructure like roads and new water tanks. Now, the influx of high-paid engineering staff has changed its demographics, making Van Horn ineligible for those grants.
Blue Origin says it has helped bring in more than $1 million for the community through grants to the benefit of the school district, food bank and town infrastructure. The company says it also has an agreement with the school district to support higher education and job skills funding.
City officials confirm that Blue Origin has written letters to support the town’s attempts to get funding for various projects. And personnel from the spaceport have given classes on robotics at the local high school and engaged in tutoring.
For some locals, such measures bode well for the future. “It used to be there's Van Horn here and Blue Origin over there,” the city’s mayor Becky Brewster says, explaining the two haven’t had much to do with each other since Bezos’s space company first showed up. “They’re now starting to integrate. It's just going to get bigger, the launches are going to get more frequent.”
Brewster and her family go way back. Before becoming Van Horn mayor last year, she had been a city administrator for 30 years until 2009. Her father, Okey D. Lucas, was also once the town’s mayor. Its municipal park is named after him. She’s hopeful Blue Origin will do more than bring in space tourists and step up local infrastructure investments, including more housing.
Ron Buxton arrived in town five years ago to become pastor of the Van Horn Community Church. He also runs the town’s only coffee shop and his wife works at one of the truck stops. When the couple arrived from El Paso, Buxton was also hopeful that Bezos and his spaceport would inject the town with new energy and keep younger people from moving away in search of jobs.
“When I first got here I thought this town was going to take off. That it was going to be a boomtown,” Buxton says. “I don't get that impression anymore.”
Even so, the town’s people are ecstatic about the July 20 mission, Buxton says. Too bad the only way they’ll get a close look is on their TVs. Highway 54, which leads to the launch site, will be barricaded at about 11 miles from the spaceport’s perimeter.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.