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May 22, 2009

Fearing a collapse, century-old Hunter landmark demolished

By Cass Rains, Staff Writer

HUNTER — A more than 100-year-old building had to be demolished Thursday after its roof collapsed into the street and threatened to wreck the rest of the building.

Garfield County Commis-sioner Mike Postier said the building was last used as a bank in the early 1990s. A limestone marker built into the bricks on the east side of the building had a date of 1905.

“It was an old building,” Postier said. “I hated to see it have to come down like that.”

He said the roof of an adjoining building had collapsed and was pulling on the remaining structure of the bank on the corner of Maine and Cherokee.

“We were worried about the traffic going through there and a power transmission line going through there,” Postier said of the decision to take the rest of the building down.

Undersheriff Jerry Niles said animal control notified the sheriff’s office about the collapse Thursday afternoon. He said the initial collapse also knocked down nearby power lines.

“Due to the threat of it coming down at any time, we decided to go ahead and drop that wall and basically the whole building,” Niles said.

He said attempts to contact the owner, who lives in Colorado and purchased the building on the online auction site eBay, were unsuccessful.

“A little bit of history came down,” Niles said.

Postier said scenes of the 1973 movie “Dillinger,” starring Warren Oates, were filmed outside of the bank.

Postier and Niles said they believed the bank was last occupied in 1991. Since then, the condition of the building had been deteriorating.

“It was just a matter of time until it fell,” Postier said. “It wasn’t safe to be inside anymore.

“You hate to have to knock down history like that.”

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