Also: “I walked around the structures today, and with all of the train vibrations over the 150-plus years, no crack or structural damage” was visible, he said. “This thing is built like a brick.”
City Council decided to keep both buildings from being demolished, not just the older, one-story building that saw the visit of Abraham Lincoln. Council members Carla Fiehrer and Susan Vaughn, citing costs, the lack of a tenant or purpose for the building and other financial needs the city faces, voted against.
Finfrock, who at an earlier meeting called the station the most important commercial structure still standing in Hamilton, agreed with Moeller both 19th century buildings were sturdy. Finfrock urged officials Wednesday: “Let’s move both buildings and not do the job halfway.”
Finfrock displayed historic photos of the station from the 1880s on video screens in council’s meeting room before the vote, and noted the large piles of luggage next to the train. “People were moving to Hamilton at this particular period of time and bringing everything they had, everything they owned, with them,” he said.
He showed another image of Train 55 from 1951 or 1952, to explain significance of the station’s younger building, the two-story building, which he said was built in 1887-88. “This was the center of all rail activity in the city of Hamilton, both the mainlines, as well as the line to Indianapolis,” he said.
“Here in Hamilton, we don’t have a museum for our past industries,” Finfrock noted. “We need one. This could be a possible use for the two-story (building),”
The city has said it would cost about $600,000 to move both buildings onto new foundations and make minor repairs to prevent further damage to them. For only the single-story building, the equivalent cost would have been about $400,000.
The $600,000-$650,000 costs to move both buildings are to come from the city’s general fund.
City Manager Joshua Smith earlier said it would cost $1.8 million to move only the single-story building, which hosted Lincoln’s visit before the other was built, and also bring the one-story building to a state where a tenant would only have to decorate the inside and add equipment and furnishings to move in. No estimate has been offered for the costs of bringing both buildings to that state.
The Hamilton Community Foundation has committed to helping raise money for the station if the city builds foundations for the station’s buildings, moves it onto them and “secures” it against further deterioration.
The city also said the station not only hosted visits by presidents Abraham Lincoln, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, but by Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover.
Before the council meeting, city staff had prepared two pieces of legislation: One that would have saved only one of the station’s two buildings (the one-story structure, which is older); and the other resolution, through which council directed city staff to move both buildings onto new foundations that will be created for them at 409 Maple Ave. After the decision to save both buildings was made, the other piece of legislation was discarded.
Finfrock at an earlier meeting called the station the most important commercial structure still standing in Hamilton, and who displayed historic photos of the station for council, urged officials Wednesday: “Let’s move both buildings and not do the job halfway.” He said both buildings are very sturdy.
“We all know it will cost more for two buildings than it will for one, but I’m going to go forward about a hundred years,” Moeller said. “I don’t know how many buildings are still going to be still standing in 2021, historic or non-historic, but I’ve got a funny feeling that if we are able to save both of these buildings, both these buildings will still be standing a hundred years from now.”
“The cost, I struggle with,” Moeller conceded. “But the fact that we can get a chance to have two buildings standing a hundred years from now, standing with history, I think’s pretty important.”
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