Secret Places Tour

Yesterday Petey and I went on a tour . . . and it wasn't a "three hour tour."  hahaha, get it?  A Gilligan's Island reference.  Clever, eh?

Our downtown is an old downtown and we have some really cool old buildings down there.  Spooky basements and second stories with some interesting stories.

There's also a group of people here in town who are really into old houses and buildings and they thought it would be a great idea (and fund raiser) to tour all those coolio places.

 We started here at the old bank.

  

That guy in the vault has "bank robber" written all over him, doesn't he?

Imagine what was kept in these
old safe deposit boxes.  Gems, old love letters and a derringer or two.

Upper left is Earl Delano, President of the bank.

 Next door to the bank and upstairs were offices; one of them was my dentist's.  I still got a bit of a creepy feeling walking up those stairs.  The question regarding the safe was - who had to carry that thing upstairs?

 The second stories had to be mighty hot in the summer so there were transoms above many of the doors.

I remember hearing something about fire doors.  This might be one.

  

Transforming these rooms into apartments/condos is going to take a lot of work but wouldn't it be cool?

  

One pipe - no hot water back in the day.  No wonder bathing was a once-a-week event.

Many people were heard to say they'd love living downtown except for the stairs.  Boy, howdy, there were a lot of them.

 Fancy door hinges.

 Use your imagination.

  


Can you tell I like the little things?

Some place for all that hot air to go.

  


Check out the windows. 

 More stairs.  Oh, my achin' calves.

Tin ceiling.

  

Basement wall.

Ignore the awning; we're still calling it Huff's.

  

All those drawers.  Wonder what they used them for?

 I was fascinated by this little goody.  Steve Tibbits gave me a penny and dared me.  Naturally I took the dare.  My fortune said something about loving the finer things in life but not having the money to back them up.  How did it know???

  
My excitement took a nosedive when Lynn Huff told me that it was "exact" in measurement.  I was not a happy girl.  I swore the group around me to secrecy.

She also said this one still worked like a charm.  I did not try it out.

 Again, I ask you to ignore the awning - this is and will always be the Grange store to many of us locals.

Interesting, eh?  No clue.

Worth climbing to see what can be done.

This apartment is above Montage (the old Wedge building) and we all wanted to move in but decided we'd need one of those cute little chairs that ride on a rail to haul our old bods up and down.

The tour was a great idea and well done.  We look forward to what's in store for us in the future.