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Rolfe News | ||
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Razing of Landmark Building
Damages Main
Street Law Office by Helen D. Gunderson August 30, 2001 On Wednesday afternoon, August 29, Charles Gunderson's law office on Main Street (shown above) was severely damaged by falling bricks and other debris. The tall brick building just north of his office had been damaged in a wind storm during the past year and had seemed a threat to Charles' building since that time. The City hired Alan Branhoij of Bradgate and Lowell Luft of rural Rolfe, two veterans at demolition work, to raze the precarious, large brick structure. |
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Many people will remember it as Webb's Drug Store on the north and Hauck's grocery which later became Freeman's Market on the south side of the building. In later years, the drug store became the Gift Galley and the grocery store became the Community Center (shown in the photo at left that was taken during Rolfe's 125th Anniversary in 1988). | ||
| According to Alan, the deconstruction crew tried several strategies to safely dismantle the large building, but in the late afternoon they realized that plans "A" and "B" would not work and that they would have to give the building a whack to make it come down. In the meantime, Annette Taylor, who is Charles' secretary and who is married to the pastor of the church that Charles attends (Faith Lutheran Church south of the six-mile corner), recruited members to carry the contents of the law office to what used to be the Iowa Electric building on the west side of Main Street. However some items were placed on the south side of the law office where it was anticipated they would be safe, but instead were damaged. Fortunately, no one was hurt in the process. | |||
 East side of Main Street in the 1940s. The tallest building is the one that was razed yesterday. People familiar with Rolfe business signs of that era will be able to notice the Webb's Drug Store sign and that of Hauck's Grocery Store. The photo arrived just today from JoAnn Hauck Bollard who is a 1948 graduate of Rolfe and whose parents owned the grocery store. |
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I first met Alan in March of 1990 when he was deconstructing the Victorian house built in 1907 on our family home place farm in Roosevelt Township where my grandparents had lived. He and his colleague worked patiently and were able to recycle most of the materials from the home. Alan is an extremely thoughtful and careful person with a wealth of knowledge about how buildings are put together and how they should be dismantled. At the time, I asked how he got into a career of tearing down old buildings. Alan said he started out with the intent to build buildings but then realized if he wanted his construction business to survive in Pocahontas, Humboldt and nearby counties he needed to specialize in deconstruction since there was much more of a call to raze old structures than to build new ones. Over the years, he has torn down many Main Street structures in Rolfe. When I talked to Alan last night, he said this was the first time that something major had gone wrong with razing a building and that he was embarrassed even though there was nothing that could be done to prevent the bricks from falling on Charles' building. I have a great deal of respect for Alan and hope people who hear about the incident or see the ruins on Main Street will appreciate how delicate the situation was with the tall community center building and not cast aspersions on Alan nor Lowell. Alan says that in the next few days, the crew will work on cleaning up the rubble which will be carried away in a rotation of four trucks while Alan continues to dismantle the brick building. He also has the task of digging up the lot to the north of the brick building where Wood's Super Valu store used to stand. Apparently that building had burned to the ground several years ago during the winter, and the rubble was simply buried. However, in order to build on the site, it will need to be excavated in order to clean up the site. |
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| There are no more brick buildings of yesteryear on the east side of the main block of Main Street. There is the Pronto store on the southwest corner of the block, Charles' office in the center of the block and the rubble of the brick building which is being demolished. There are still some brick buildings on the west side of the main area of Main Street, including the bank and City Hall; however, there are none of the old-time, tall, brick bastions of grandeur. | |||
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The City of Rolfe, the Rolfe Public Library, and a newly-formed non-profit
group have been planning for a new, multi-purpose, community center on the
site of the demolished building and have been applying for grant monies.
Eventually, they will probably start a fund-raising campaign. Already, one
area resident has pledged a large financial gift to the project. If any of
you Rolfe loyalists wish to make the a new building come true, write the
Rolfe City Hall or call 712-848-3124.
The new building would include city offices, the library, and a community
center. What a great gift from those of us in the Rolfe alumni cyberland
to make to the town.
Charles is a 1962 graduate of Rolfe. He graduated from Iowa State in agricultural business then received his law degree from the University of Iowa and returned to Rolfe to begin a practice from scratch and has served the community and county ever since that time. He and his wife, Gloria, were vacationing at Lake Okoboji when his law building was damaged. |
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Late Breaking News —
Rolfe Receives Grant for New Building Rolfe just got word on about September 3 that it had received a grant from the USDA of $167,500 for a new multi-purpose building to house city offices, the public library, and a community center. In addition, a resident of the Rolfe area has pledged a substantial amount of money to help with the building. We expect more information will be forthcoming about the project and that there will be future fund-raising efforts as well. We'll post additional news and photos as they come our way. My sister, Clara Hoover (RHS 1960), is now a school administrator in Millard (a suburb of Omaha) but has had a long career as a librarian and is an expert when it comes to searching for information. She found and sent me a copy of the actual news release from the USDA and links to additional information about the grant. It is interesting to note the following sentence in the release that describes the purpose of the grant program. "The grant funds will assist in developing essential community facilities in areas of extremely high unemployment and severe economic depression." It's hard to realize the changes that have happened in
Rolfe since the prosperous days when some of the historical photos found
below were taken. I always thought that places such as Appalachia or
Indian reservations were the kinds of places that would be labeled as
"areas of extremely high unemployment and severe economic
depression." But today, the state of affairs in rural Iowa is a
difficult one. And Pocahontas County is losing its population and
prosperity as fast as any place in the state. |
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More Photos Click here for more photos of the demolition site and related scenes. |
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Tip for Viewing Photos Often, a photo is posted so that you can click on it to get a larger version of the same image. Try that for some of the photos on this page in order to see more detail. |
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Painting at top of page by the late Darlene Brinkman, former mayor of Rolfe.
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