Piece of Hillsboro history faces extermination
By JENNIFER WILSON
News editor
A piece of Hillsboro history could be gone forever if action isn't take soon.
The dilemma surrounds a small building once owned by the founder of Hillsboro, John G. Hill. It's the former office building for Hill's lumberyard business, Badger Lumber.
After being moved several decades ago, the building continues to deteriorate. And the owner of the property it sits on wants it moved or at least temporarily repaired — or else he'll remove it himself.
"It's in really bad shape," said Richard Wall, chairman of the historical society and museum board.
Badger Lumber was once located at the south side of the intersection at First and Ash — where the former B and B Handyman building is located now. The lumberyard's office building was located just south of that, approximately where a row of covered storage now sits across from the grain elevator.
Several decades later, the office building was moved to its current location north of Concrete Products, Wall said. He didn't know exactly when the building was moved but guessed it to be in the 1970s.
And that's where it's sat ever since.
The weather has taken its toll on the structure. With the windows gone, the roof falling apart, and the siding deteriorating, the building doesn't provide much shelter for the objects stored inside it.
Hillsboro resident Vernon Friesen bought the property that the building sits on in the mid-1980s, and he's kept items inside it periodically. But with the condition the building is in, Friesen might do just as well to keep his belongings outside, he said.
Since the building keeps getting worse, Friesen wants the historical society to take some action by the end of the summer, he said.
But if the society fashioned some temporary fixes for the building, such as putting tin on the roof and nailing the windows shut, he'd allow the building to remain on his property a while longer.
"Then it can stay for a little while," Friesen said.
According to Wall, the historical society has talked off and on for years about restoring the old building. Lately they've realized that if they don't move quickly, the building will be beyond repair, he said.
The society has two options: stabilize or restore.
Stabilizing the building would be a temporary, less-expensive solution. But the society's ultimate goal would be to move the building onto the city's museum complex and completely restore it.
They could do that with a couple thousand dollars and a dozen or so volunteers, Wall said.
Restoring the Hill office building has not been the society's priority, but the urgent condition of the building may force the organization to change its plans, he said.
"It should have been done 10 years ago," Wall said.
The society's biggest priority has been raising funds for a proposed visitor's center, which the complex desperately needs, he said. It would be a place dedicated to Hillsboro history, not just adobe history or Mennonite history, possibly with areas for lectures or video presentations.
"That will kick us up a notch or two," he said. "We need a large building to do that."
The society has "tens of thousands" of dollars saved for the center, Wall said.
Another project the group would like to undertake would be saving a stone house built by Bartel ancestors and located north of French Creek. The society has received money from Bartel descendants specifically earmarked for the moving and restoration of that building.
A similar situation took place for the Friesen windmill — family members stepped forward and funded that project. If Hill descendants would do the same for this office, that would greatly help the society, Wall said.
The decision is still up in the air.
"We're at a crossroads now," he said.
John G. Hill is known as the founder of Hillsboro. He decided that this area, right in the middle of several Mennonite settlements, would be a good place for trade.
He filed the plat for the city on June 24, 1879, five years after the first Mennonites entered the region.
