The dust Dan Oswalt saw boiling around the edge of the big brick building he owns at 508 West St. got his attention Sunday morning. With a closer look he saw most of the building’s south wall lying on West Street.
The building was due to be razed, but in a more methodical manner.
“The roof had fallen in and some of the interior had been removed,” Oswalt told the Register.
“I suppose the wind caught it just right,” he said in explaining the wall’s collapse.
Workers were there Sunday and Monday cleaning up. A trackhoe is expected to knock down the remaining walls, Oswalt said.
Meanwhile, the street is barricaded and yellow tape warns onlookers to keep their distance.
OSWALT purchased the building about two years ago. The building has an attached steel addition containing automotive repair bays and offices. United Tire Co. operated there for years after moving from the 200 block of West Street.
His plans are to add another three repair bays, provided he can get the city’s permission, to have eight all together, Oswalt said.
“The city says it’s in the flood plain, but water didn’t get in the building in 2007,” the second greatest flood in Iola’s recorded history, Oswalt observed. “Flooded businesses in the south part of town reopened. I don’t know why this should be any different.”
Oswalt has no immediate plans for the building, with what’s in place or an expansion, other than to have a place to “tinker with my cars,” he said.
As for the brick that tumbled and remains standing, Oswalt figures he will put up for sale the majority.
“I figured they were those old sand bricks, but they’re really good ones,” he said, noting that new brick of comparable quality sell for about $1.25 each.
The brick building was constructed in 1898 to house Iola’s first “artificial ice plant,” according to a report in the Register on Feb. 17, 1898.
