Re: Depot Restoration Object Lesson
Author: Dale Jones
Date: 06-08-2008 - 07:48
I can personally testify to this situation.
Back in 1998/1999 I was restoring the only Two-Story Soo Line depot left extant in Montana. Then a fire stopped all work.
It was not an unknown fire but it was a prairie fire! They don't happen much any more - but on October 31, 1999 the famous "Halloween Prairie Fires of 1999" burned thousands of acres in Eastern Montana and also the Outlook, Montana depot I was working on. The CP Rail [which owned the building [for the Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western ] had already cleaned out any hazardous materials [asbestos, etc.] But I was working on clean -up and had two sides of the depot painted in original Soo Line colors on the exterior. Anyway - all was lost when the fire burned out half of the town all the grain elevators and the precious depot.
The only good thing about it [if there is such a thing] - I did not spend hundreds of more hours to see the whole thing go up in smoke.
I suppose the one thing to learn from these types of fires is that they have been going on since the days of the Babylon and have burned most of what humanity calls "Historic" so - - - I guess we in the 21st Century should not feel immune to the forces of Nature or carelessness on the part of humans.
Anyway - I loved the work while I was doing it and like they say "That's Life!"
Talk to ya later,
Dale Jones
www.montanarailroadhistory.info