Superman fans campaign for Kansas city to be renamed Smallville
After 141 years, Hutchinson, Kansas, is ready for a big change — or at least three of its residents are.
Comics fans Ben Eisiminger, KC McNeely and Christopher Wietrick believe their city has so much in common with Smallville, the fictional hometown of Clark Kent, that Hutchinson should change its name.
“There is a Metropolis [in Illinois],” Wietrick tells KWCH TV, “why isn’t there a Smallville?”
To that end, the aspiring comic artist and his two friends have launched a Facebook page called simply, Hutchinson, KS Should Be Named “Smallville.” “Our hometown has several tourist attractions already,” the page states. “We would love to see that increase by a great amount and we strongly believe that should this happen it would be a huge economic boost to the city, county and area.” Since its July 15 debut, the page has garnered 1,241 “Likes” — not bad for a city of 42,080 people a figure that may or may not include a stray Kryptonian or two.
So what makes Salt City the ideal candidate to become Smallville? Aside from its central Kansas location, Wietrick argues the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is the perfect place to store the rocket that brought the infant Kal-El to Earth, and that the Kansas Underground Museum is important “because we have a mineral underground, just like Smallville — thankfully it’s not kryptonite, it’s salt.” As a bonus, the museum already has an exhibit showcasing a Superman costume and other Hollywood memorabilia a secured section of the same mine is devoted to Underground Vaults & Storage, a temperature- and humidity-controlled facility used to house motion picture negatives, television show masters, costumes, medical records and the like.
“Our ultimate goal is for Warner Bros. and DC Comics to recognize Hutchinson as Smallville, Kanas,” Wietrick says. “It could be a huge boost to the town.”
Smallville, which made its comic-book debut in 1949, was given a vague and often changing geographical location until 1986, when it was firmly established in Kansas.
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