Going, going ...

On Tuesday afternoon members of the Chamber of Commerce gathered to present a plaque of appreciation to Marvin Nagel, who is retiring from the auto-mechanic business. It was like a reverse ribbon cutting--celebrating a closing rather than an opening.

 After the posed picture, Mayor Wood gave the plaque to Mr Nagel.

 The station was built in 1955 on the site of what had been Wright Furniture and Funeral Home, a three story building that towered over the other buildings on that side of the street. In 1958 it was bought by Jack McNeal. Marvin went to work for him in the late 1960s and later bought the business. The fuel pumps were removed in the 1990s when one of the tanks developed a leak.

A few blocks away the demolition of the old Johnny Rusk Building was proceeding.

 Below is what the site looked like in the early afternoon of Wednesday. As the building is demolished, the debris is sorted, and the sorting takes much more time than the knocking the building down. You can see a pile of metal on the left. The concrete block is also separated from the wood.

I have heard some misconceptions about why the building is being torn down. The building was bought by Jasper County from the Donnelly Estate. There are no current plans to use the site, but the county was looking to the future and the possibility of someday adding an annex to the court house. The ideal place would be across the street where the county already owns the site of the former jail. They bought this to lock in a bit more of the block.