Last month, the Main Street America Board of Directors gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At this meeting, John Mitterholzer was selected as our incoming board chair, effective January 1, 2026. John is the Program Director, Climate & Environmental Justice, at the George Gund Foundation. He has experience at multiple levels of the Main Street movement, including helping launch Coordinating Programs and serving as an executive director. I spoke to John about his Main Street journey, the importance of preserving places, and his work in climate justice.

For those who don’t know you, how did you come to the Main Street movement?

I started as a staffer at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, working in the Mountain Plains office. At the time, both Wyoming and Montana asked us to help create Main Street programs. I went through the required training and then dove right in. I spent three years traveling to small towns, crisscrossing these two states, explaining what Main Street was. I got to know the model well, and I immediately saw how valuable it could be.

I loved the Main Street model from the beginning. What really drew me in was the direct connection to people. Historic preservation can sometimes feel abstract, but Main Streets are tangible and immediate. They’re about places, and our authentic connection to them as people. They’re such a powerful way to help people connect to their place and community.

You were also a Main Street manager — what are some of the main things you remember learning on the job?

I worked as a Main Street manager in Nashua, New Hampshire, in 2003 and 2004. It was the hardest job I’ve ever had. Everyone in a community feels some connection to Main Street, which is a great thing! But it also means you’re not just working for the board — you’re working for merchants, customers, and really the entire community. You learn quickly how to navigate different interests and personalities. One of the biggest lessons was realizing that while we all have different ideas, it’s our shared sense of place that holds us together. We all want to be good stewards of the place we share.

You started two statewide programs — can you talk about the need for these coordinating programs and the value of having the network organized this way?

Statewide coordinating programs are critical. They can provide really essential resources to help get new Main Street programs off the ground. For more mature programs, they offer support with complex challenges, and honestly, that’s where I think their greatest value lies. These programs are especially valuable when local issues start to feel overwhelming — because the coordinating staff has seen it all before. They offer expert guidance and help connect local efforts with broader solutions. They’re particularly helpful on the design side, where local expertise can be harder to find. For example, it’s very common for Main Streets to face high vacancy rates. Many have a prominent, historic ​“white elephant” building that’s in need of rehabilitation and is dragging the district down. The state program can bring in design expertise and strategic thinking to help make that building into a real community asset.

I know you also have a connection to some tribal lands. Can you tell me about your work to preserve sacred sites?

Yes, in addition to Main Streets, at the Trust, I also worked on sacred site preservation in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota, including with the Sioux tribe along the Missouri River. People don’t often think of the National Historic Preservation Act as something that covers tribal lands, but that’s the mechanism through which sacred sites are protected. The reservation system in this country is deeply flawed — many tribes are not on their own ancestral land, and are stewards of sacred sites that aren’t even their own. And unlike much of what the Trust works on, sacred sites aren’t buildings; they can be waterways, berry bushes, or other natural features. This work helped broaden my own definition of preservation. It isn’t just about structures and the built environment — it’s about honoring our connection to place.

What is an important lesson you’ve learned about preserving places?

I’ve learned that how people define ​“place” is deeply personal. We can’t decide for others what’s important. Just because something doesn’t look historically significant doesn’t mean it isn’t deeply meaningful to a community. If it matters to someone, it matters. I’ve learned to try not to make assumptions when I arrive in a community. I always look for a local person to show me around. The Trust has an advisor program, and those folks have been incredibly helpful. I remember arriving in Wyoming for the first time in my twenties, wearing a full suit and being told by my local advisor, ​“Welcome to Wyoming — never wear a suit here again.” When I travel, I try hard to go where the locals go, not the tourist spots. I want to see where people congregate, where people eat, and start to learn why these places are meaningful.

Like many people who have been in this movement for a long time, you’ve had great successes in preserving some places, and others have been less successful. Can you reflect on something that didn’t work?

My biggest disappointment was losing Pompey’s Pillar in Wyoming. It’s the only spot on the Lewis and Clark trail where it’s proven that they actually went there — because William Clark carved his name into the rock. It had been a very quiet, spiritual place — members of the tribes would climb to the top to conduct sacred rituals. Then a proposal came in to build high-speed grain elevators nearby, which are incredibly noisy and would completely alter the character of the site. We tried everything, the full preservation playbook. I worked with Stephen Ambrose and even got a letter published in The New York Times. But in the end, we lost – we were crushed by Monsanto. The elevators got built, and the site was changed forever. Even though I’m not sure we could have done anything differently, it was a major loss and a reminder of how hard this work can be.

I understand you want a Main Street in Cleveland — what do you think this would accomplish for the community?

Cleveland actually had a Main Street program. (It was only a few years.) As a city, we have a lot of work to do around vacancy and revitalization, and that’s what Main Street does best. We have great commercial corridors here, and I’d like to see a program focused on preserving them as cultural hubs. We have incredible cultural districts here: we have Asiatown, we have the Clark Fulton Neighborhood, the largest Latino community in Ohio, and 117^th and Lorain, a hub for Arabic-speaking businesses and customers. These neighborhoods have rich cultural identities, and Main Streets can help preserve and support the communities that have built them. It’s a long-term goal, but I believe we need to do a much better job of stewarding our commercial districts as cultural spaces.

I know your day job is in climate justice — in your mind, how is the Main Street movement connected to climate issues?

Climate justice and Main Streets are deeply connected. Rehabilitating older buildings instead of constructing new ones is a powerful form of repurposed capital. That’s my starting point. We also need more localized economies — Main Streets support that. The way our current economy functions, rooted in consumer capitalism, is not sustainable for the climate. We all know this. Having walkable communities, where people can get to businesses and run errands without driving, makes a big difference. My family of four in Cleveland only has one car, and that’s made possible by the type of community Main Streets help foster. 

Can you tell me about a favorite moment of joy that happened on a Main Street?

It’s not just one moment. I actually grew up near a Main Street — Medina, Ohio. That’s my Main Street, the one closest to my heart. One interesting thing is that it’s built around a central green, like a traditional New England town, because this part of Ohio was part of the Connecticut Western Reserve when it was settled in the early 1800s. My mother and grandmother, my whole family growing up, loved Medina, and I have so many wonderful memories there. There was a little movie theater that my grandmother loved, and an old army surplus store that my dad loved. Some of my favorite childhood memories are from walking the streets around that green with the people I love most. 

Any reflections or thoughts as you step into this new role?

It’s a great honor to be stepping into this role. The Main Streets network is incredible, and I am so honored to serve on its behalf. I take the responsibility super seriously because of how much this movement means to me personally. I know what great Main Streets can do for a community, and I can’t wait to move into this role.