Hannah Toole eager to tell Winchester’s tourism story

Hannah Toole knows some­thing about selling. 

She is a real estate agent who pre­vi­ous­ly worked for 12 years in adult bev­er­age dis­tri­b­u­tion and was once a bar­tender and cater­er. And, as a city com­mis­sion­er, she has been involved in boost­ing Winchester as a place to do business.

Now she’s look­ing for­ward to mar­ket­ing her home­town and coun­ty as their new tourism director.

“I don’t want to say it came out of left field because I’ve pret­ty much spent my entire adult life in some form of hos­pi­tal­i­ty,” she said of her new job dur­ing an inter­view in her office at 61 S. Main St.

She believes the expe­ri­ence she has had inter­twines with what she will be doing now.

“Tourism is sell­ing your com­mu­ni­ty,” she said. “It’s cre­at­ing a sto­ry and sell­ing a story.”

Toole suc­ceeds Jill Hamlin, who resigned last summer.

Less than a month before she might have been re-elect­ed to anoth­er term on the Winchester Board of Commissioners, Toole stepped down to assume her appoint­ed role as an ambas­sador for her community.

She said Winchester has made sig­nif­i­cant strides in becom­ing a tourist des­ti­na­tion, espe­cial­ly with the renew­al and beau­ti­fi­ca­tion of Main Street down­town, which has result­ed in trendy new busi­ness­es and an increase in pedes­tri­an traffic.

But down­town isn’t Winchester’s only des­ti­na­tion, and Toole sees room for improvement.

“I don’t think we’re in that place,” where Winchester and Clark County can rest on its recent achieve­ments, she said. There is more to be done.

“I just think we need to put a lit­tle more gas in the engine,” she said. “We lost momen­tum over the last few years, I think. Covid put us down, and then tran­si­tions through every­thing. I think we just need to gear back up again.”

Earlier in the week, she had attend­ed a Winchester-Clark County Tourism Commission meet­ing and liked what she heard.

“It’s real­ly an excit­ing time,” she said.

The same day as her inter­view, Toole intend­ed to hike the lit­tle trail at the Civil War Fort at Boonesboro. And she was think­ing about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of expand­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty to the John Holder Trail and Lower Howard’s Creek, which is a most­ly pri­vate nature preserve.

“That’s a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for our com­mu­ni­ty,” she said, but it must be well reg­u­lat­ed to main­tain its envi­ron­men­tal val­ue and be made safe, she added.

Toole said she hopes Alyshia Martin, the city’s grant writer, can help with that.

Although Fort Boonesborough State Park is on the Madison County side of the Kentucky River, it is a local des­ti­na­tion that Clark County res­i­dents such as Elizabeth Chalfant, the tourism board chair, have had a big role in promoting.

Covid and flood­ing took a toll on the state park, but more of it is sup­posed to open back up in 2027, includ­ing the pub­lic pool and the camp­grounds, the direc­tor said.

She not­ed that the dis­tance from down­town Winchester to Fort Boonesborough is less than the dis­tance from the state park to Richmond, Madison’s coun­ty seat.

“What I wouldn’t give if Daniel Boone had just decid­ed to set­tle on the oth­er side of the riv­er,” she laughed. “But it’s a good partnership.”

Partnerships with oth­er Bluegrass com­mu­ni­ties ben­e­fit Winchester and Clark County, she said. However, she wants to “get a lit­tle more Eastern Kentucky col­lab­o­ra­tion as well,” includ­ing mak­ing Winchester a place to eat and sleep for those vis­it­ing the Red River Gorge and Slade.

The week of the inter­view, Toole had spent part of a Thursday after­noon vis­it­ing Winchester’s hotels and motels to gauge what the city has to offer in terms of accom­mo­da­tions. Short-term rentals and bed-and-break­fasts are also part of that mix.

She was also delight­ed that Winchester that week was host­ing a group of pho­to­jour­nal­ism stu­dents through Western Kentucky University’s Mountain Workshops project, which will pro­duce an online archive of sto­ries, pic­tures, and videos, and even­tu­al­ly a hard­back book.

“How fun is it that we look that good that peo­ple want to come here and tell our sto­ry?” she asked.

Toole sees agri­cul­tur­al his­to­ry and agri­tourism as anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty for attract­ing visitors.

Mount Folly Farm, Avalon Farms, Blackfish Bison Ranch, Harkness Edwards Vineyards, and Hamon Haven Winery are a few of the rur­al places that already attract vis­i­tors. And the Winchester-Clark County Farmers Market down­town is a huge Saturday draw in the summer.

The coun­ty also has a stone fence dri­ving tour that would “over­lap nice­ly” with agri­tourism, she said.

She also thinks the Tourism Commission should do more to pro­mote the Bluegrass Heritage Museum.

Winchester and Clark County are begin­ning to see a surge in res­i­den­tial devel­op­ment, and Toole thinks that is good for tourism because it will also mean more busi­ness­es and more rev­enue. Currently, tourism is fund­ed almost entire­ly by a three per­cent tran­sient room tax and match­ing funds from the state, but she sees a need for more fund­ing and more venues to accom­mo­date larg­er events.

Two big events that com­pli­ment local tourism are the Daniel Boone Pioneer Festival and the Beer Cheese Festival.

She said she would like to revive Clark County’s Beer Cheese Trail, which is sim­i­lar to the Bourbon Trail — some­thing she’s famil­iar with from her days of work­ing for Sazarec.

Communities that are suc­cess­ful in tourism tend to put a great deal of empha­sis on a sig­na­ture indus­try. For Bardstown, it’s bour­bon. For Berea, it’s moun­tain arts and crafts. For Lexington, with Keeneland and the Kentucky Horse Park, it’s thoroughbreds.

For Winchester, Toole said, it would have to be Ale‑8 One and beer cheese, both of which orig­i­nat­ed here.

“That’s what we are,” she said, call­ing atten­tion to a paint­ing behind her desk that fea­tures both the gin­ger-cit­rus soft drink based in Winchester that marked its 100^th anniver­sary this sum­mer, and the cayenne-fla­vored cheese spread that, leg­end has it, began at the for­mer Allman’s Restaurant in Boonesboro.

“If I didn’t give that answer, I think I should be fired from the job,” she added, laughing.