The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.
So the Townhall burn. We don’t know much early history of the townhall. We assume it was built in the late 1800’s.
It was basically a room school. About that size. And if you look at old plat maps it will show that this was always the townhall and there used to be a school across the road. Some people might tell you this building WAS the school across the road, and it was moved here by the great tornado of 1883. Believe what you wish.
A stage was added onto one end at some point in time. A gentleman who’s 80 told me last week his dad had talked about the stage being moved here, which is the first time I’ve actually heard that. We always suspected it, but I had never heard it was moved and not part of the original structure. I got my theater start doing one act plays on that stage.
It’s the building where my parents met as infants when their parents would leave them behind the furnace in their bassinets during the Ringe Mothers and Daughters Club. Both my folks went to 4H there, my siblings and I went to 4H there, it’s been a voting place, if you grew up in the township you had a wedding shower there, oyster stews, ice cream socials, your typical rural gathering place. It had no running water or bathrooms. (When I first got on the townboard, we tried to get the residents approval to install a composting toilet, but they denied it.) The outhouse did have Boys AND girls sides. Two holes in each!
The township had been putting money aside for ten years for a new hall. We knew the front of the building was settling, and with the money the federal government provided to local governments during Covid, we were able to use that money to build a new building about a mile and a half away. It has heat, and air conditioning, and most importantly, running water and BATHROOMS. no more trips to the outhouse. However, you’ll be glad to know we saved the outhouse seats and have put them in the new bathrooms.
A lot of people wanted us to save the old building but there was a catch. The ground it sat on is county road right of way property, so the building needed to be moved. A few people got estimates, and it was ball parked at $20,000 not counting your site preparation and moving utility lines. Plus, we were not sure it would hold together for a move, and that stage end would probably separate. And in the end, we agreed to let the Rochester fire department use it for a practice burn as training for 8 new recruits. In order to do that, the fire department had to show that it had “interior firefighting value “, and thankfully, it tested negative for asbestos, before the DNR would issue a permit. One man, a training officer with the fire department, built eight individual rooms inside, complete with sheetrock, in order to have eight practice fires before burning the entire structure.
Saturday morning, November 9th, I was there for the whole event. More interesting than the fire itself was watching and observing the fireman and how they went about their duties.
Everything from the “shuffle” they must do when the motion sensor on their uniform goes off, to the trailer used to refill their oxygen tanks onsite. (The sensor is known as a PASS system – Personal Alert Safety System, and it’s activated by a lack of motion. As they stood outside talking, the alarm would go off and they’d “shuffle” or rock back and forth a bit or jump or something just to stop it. It was fun to observe that, but obviously, if someone goes down in a fire, it would be invaluable.)
They practiced cutting holes in the roof and walls, learning how not to cut through the actual roof supports. We discovered there was no insulation in the walls! No wonder it was always so cold in there!
Not really sure that many people should be on the roof…
My gratitude and appreciation go out to these men and women even more. I commented to one, there’s so much smoke, you can’t see anything. Nope, it’s all by feel, or the one man with a thermal camera near the front.
They simulated a Mayday call where one officer called over the radio that he was low on oxygen and lost in the building. Everything stopped while the rescue crew found him.
It’s sad to see a structure like that burned down, but that is tempered by the fact it went out serving a purpose.
A few day later we found out the telephone box next to the building was a major junction point and not simply the Townhall line. Oops. Melted that into one big pile of solid wire.
What did you want to grow up to be? Ever tipped over an outhouse? Or been tipped in one?
Trail Baboon 