Many of you are aware of my interest and love of Historic Preservation. Few of you know that it was my degree focus. I guess you can say when we bought our building I was jumping up and down on the inside to find out its historic significance!
The building fomerly owned by the Valley City Street and Interurban Railway Company is located at the corner of what is today Central Avenue and 4th Street NE. This building originally housed the electric line's power house and car barn shed. The Soo Line also maintained its downtown offices and freight depot-warehouse here from 1911 until 1963. The huge door (on the back of my building-drive around back and check out the HUGE metal straps) led to the interurban's car barn. Tracks to the building were probably removed during the WWII war effort.
The building fomerly owned by the Valley City Street and Interurban Railway Company is located at the corner of what is today Central Avenue and 4th Street NE. This building originally housed the electric line's power house and car barn shed. The Soo Line also maintained its downtown offices and freight depot-warehouse here from 1911 until 1963. The huge door (on the back of my building-drive around back and check out the HUGE metal straps) led to the interurban's car barn. Tracks to the building were probably removed during the WWII war effort.
So in a nutshell- My building was one half of the operation of the Historic Soo Line Interurban Railway system in Valley City!
We have tweaked our plans a little bit to highlight this history in the final design and will be utilizing all the original materials that are still in perfect condition (they just don't make hardboard maple floors like those any more!)
Keep on peeking in and checking back often to see the progress!
I also posted a pic of when my building was Blume's Bakery. I hope to meet up with Mr. Blume soon to talk about the building in the near future.
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