DES MOINES, Iowa – The travel site BestLife, part of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine empire, has ranked Winona fifth among rhe cutest small towns in the Upper Midwest. Adding to the cute factor is the downtown district and how it’s keeping the town’s history alive, the site said. The whole list, by travel writer Erin Yarnall:
>Egg Harbor, Wisconsin.
> Amana Colonies, Iowa.
> Hamilton, Ohio.
> Beatrice, Nebraska.
> Winona.
> Nashville,Indiana,
> Mackinac Island, Michigan.
> Pella, Iowa.
> Augusta , Missouri.
> Woodstck, Illinois.
BestLife accolades
Verbatim:’Take a look around most big cities and you’ll see that they’re modernizing as they grow, upgrading old buildings and sadly, stripping away some of the charm. Thankfully, Winona, Minnesota, doesn’t have that problem. Its downtown area, filled with buildings constructed in the Victorian commercial architecture style makes it one of the cutest small cities in the Midwest.
“In addition to its charming downtown, Winona is home to Winona State Unversity, a public university with approximately nine thousand students. The school makes the city, which has a population of just 25,000, feel like a cute college town rather than a bustling city.
“Not only does Winona have a cute small-town main street, filled with shops, cafes, and public buildings, but it’s also set in a beautiful location. The city is on the Mississippi River, just over the border from Wisconsin, and it’s surrounded by bluffs including Sugar Loaf, a 500-foot bluff that towers over Lake Winona.”