TOWER- Historical preservationist Leone Graf did not have high hopes the first time she took a close look at the old Tower Fire Hall.

“The front was unimpressive from a construction standpoint,” she said. “There were cracks above the windows, missing bricks, insulation sticking out…the cracks were indicative of movement from the foundation. My thoughts were, this was a really bad building,” she said.

Graf was a featured speaker at the Tower-Soudan Historical Society’s annual meeting at the Tower Civic Center on Sept. 18, and she made her comments as the TSHS is working to finance a major renovation of the old fire hall, the oldest community fire hall north of Duluth. The building, which dates back to 1895, has been on the National Historic Register since 1980.

Despite her initial reservations about the building, Graf said she soon realized that her first impression didn’t tell the whole story.

After meeting with Tim Kotzian, who had undertaken major repairs after purchasing the building in 1990, Graf said she realized the issues she was seeing were mostly cosmetic.

Kotzian had done a thorough job of documenting his project through photographs.

“These pictures saved the building,” she said. Graf is now working with the TSHS to secure the estimated $700,000 in funding needed to restore the hall.

The pictures documented that the structural improvements and repairs done by Kotzian had in fact stabilized the building. Kotzian also documented the exact position of interior and exterior water and sewer lines, something that can be difficult to ferret out in older buildings.

“The cracks in the bricks show no sign of movement since Tim did the repairs,” she said. “He did everything right. It was a tremendous amount of work.”

Graf said if those repairs had not been done, the building would likely not warrant saving today.

Kotzian, who at the time was the Tower City Clerk/Treasurer, said he purchased the building to try to save a treasured piece of the city’s history.

“When I was growing up,” he said, “this was the place to be….Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and even the first time I danced with a girl.”

Kotzian, and his brother-in-law Chuck Cathcart, purchased the building from Sandy Wells, who owned the building with a partner.

Kotzian said he knew the building was in rough shape when he bought it and he determined that stabilizing the foundation was the first priority. “That southeast corner would have collapsed,” he said, due to slippage in the foundation on that portion of the building.

Kotzian said his father, Ed, along with his teenage sons, helped with the renovation work.

“It was a labor of love,” he said. The family stabilized the foundation, did major repairs on the interior walls and floors, installed a new set of oval-shaped glass doors on the front of the fire hall portion, and added a small rear addition with bathrooms.

While Kotzian owned the building, it was used for several businesses, including a video rental store, a gift shop, an early office for the still-fledgling Timberjay, the Corner Attic, and North Country Quilts. It has been vacant since North Country Quilts moved to a new location on Main Street in 2008.

In its earlier years, the building housed the city hall, jail, and fire hall. A bell tower sat on the roof, to warn of fires. A huge cistern was built into the basement to hold water in case of fire. When the city’s new fire hall was built in 1965, the building was used as a community and youth center, until it was sold to a private party in the 1980s.

The old brick fire hall was built after the city’s first fire hall burned down. The bricks came from a small brickyard in Soudan. The quality of the bricks was not uniform, and deterioration is very apparent on the west side of the building, which was recently exposed when the old Central Hotel building, subsequently Kitto’s Hardware Store, and later Bits and Pieces and Northern Cabin, was torn down.

The building is now owned by the TSHS, which is in the process of securing funding to restore it for future uses.

Funding the project

Tower-Soudan Historical Society Vice-President Nancy Larson has been the driving force behind securing funding for the project. “I knew it would take a lot of money,” she said. At this point the old fire hall was privately owned but vacant, and in need of much repair.

Larson credited the actions of the late state Rep. David Dill, back in 2013, for getting funding for the project seriously considered. Working with Graf, who had previously worked with the TSHS on the historic train depot, the board got to work.

Joint funding from the IRRRB and the Minnesota Historical Society allowed the TSHS, in 2014 and 2015, to assess the status of the building and create a rehabilitation plan, along with a structural engineering study. TSHS asked the IRRRB for a grant of $52,500 to help purchase the building. While purchasing real estate was something the IRRRB had not normally funded, Commissioner Mark Phillips supported the project, and the funding was awarded.

“The IRRRB knew the only alternative was to tear the building down,” said Larson.

TSHS has worked since then with Architectural Resources, of Hibbing, on the detailed plans required for the renovation. Since the building is on the National Historic Register, renovations need to match the historical nature of the building, which drives up the cost and complexity of the project, Larson noted. Each stage of the plans needed approval from the state historical society, and multiple stages of project revisions took place before the current plans were approved.

Current estimates place the total project cost at $700,000. The Minnesota Historical Society has indicated they will fund the project, in four phases. The IRRRB has agreed to help cash flow the project by giving TSHS a grant of $51,000 to cover the 20-percent holdback that is part of the MHS grant process. But once the first phase is completed, Larson noted, the holdback is repaid, and the TSHS will be able to use that IRRRB money to cash flow the holdbacks in the upcoming phases.

Larson said the project will take at least four to five years to complete. They will hear this fall if funding for phase one is approved. If so, construction will begin in 2019.

You can help

The big question left for the project is making sure TSHS has a stable source of local funding in place to maintain the building once it is restored.

“We are kicking off our sustaining membership drive tonight,” said Larson. “There is a lot of great history in this building to bring alive.”

Many at this year’s TSHS annual meeting had stories to tell about the old fire hall, which was used as the city’s community and youth center for many years after the civic center was built.

“This is one of the oldest public buildings left on the Iron Range,” Larson said. “This is a great community project.

The historical society is asking for annual pledges of any amount to create a stable financial base. “The $10 annual dues for the TSHS supports the organization itself,” Larson explained. “The sustaining pledges will be used for the longtime viability of the building itself, as well as matching funds for future grants.”

Pledges can be sent to TSHS, PO Box 465, Tower, MN 55790. PayPal donations can be made online at www.towersoudanhs.org.

Future plans for the building are to once again create a community space for events, celebrations, and displaying local history, including the city’s original steam fire engine, the Tippet. A display of the old 1890s-era fire engine inside its original hall will be a unique feature for Tower.

Fun facts

Tower’s old horse-pulled steam engine, which is known as the Tippet, was bought in 1891 and actually named after the city’s mayor at that time. It is an Ahrens brand horse-drawn fire engine. The city didn’t own horses, so contracted with local stables to supply horses whenever there was a fire. The first horse team to arrive would be paid $5. When the city’s first fire hall burned down, the building also housed the city jail. Prisoners in the jail at that time pulled the Tippet from the burning building. The Tippet was then housed in the new brick fire hall.

The city did not have water or sewer lines at that time, so the fire hall has a 30,000-gallon cistern in its basement, that was used to supply water in times of fire. The cistern was filled using a 1,500-foot-long, four-inch pipe that ran from the building to the East Two River (located by the old light plant).

The Tippet continued to be used to fight fires until 1928, when the Oliver Mining Company paid to extend water and sewer lines to Tower. The old brick fire hall was used by the city fire department until 1965.