HUMBOLDT, Kansas — Sometimes when Cole Herder has a free moment he likes to get up from behind his cluttered desk at Humboldt City Hall and go stand by the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the town square.
He remembers what the view once was: a city hanging by its nails, a downtown with half its teeth knocked out, a decaying hotel whose only guests were ghosts.
How things change. These days, downtown Humboldt is tingling with so many projects and new businesses that Herder, the city administrator, struggles to keep track of it all.
