Last week a fire ravaged the little downtown area in Bevier. The flames began in a restaurant, but the building next to it also went up in flames. During the night we battled for the salvation of our dear little Black Diamond Museum. You see it here in these pictures. As you see, we failed.
Evidently the roof of the building was wood, coated in pitch--- recipe for disaster but very common for older buildings in the Midwest. Years of dedication, money making, and hopes had rebuilt this museum, filled it with memorabilia of our town's early coal-mining glory, uncovered elaborately carved wood beams... all gone.
Gathered in the early morning, the people of our little community cherished the hope the building could be saved. I'm told the volunteer firemen risked their lives to enter the museum and chop into the trophy cases, loading precious souvenirs, keepsakes, and memorabilia into bags and dragging them out as the flames licked toward the roof.... I know people cried because all my friends did. While VERY grateful for the lives and health of all who battled the fire, we loved the old girl as we do a special old lady, a grand dame... We had helped her "fix up" and remember her glorious past, and then disaster slipped up and consumed her forever. One of my students wrote of her in
his blog, and I loved his passion...
I watched it all happen as friends snapped these photos and posted them on Facebook. Along about four-thirty in the morning, I decided to grab an hour and a half of sleep before school. What I found remarkable was the extreme sadness of my students. You know the world may say what they will about young people, but basically they are good at heart. These kids all felt the loss of "history" and the loss of tradition, and they were very sad... Some others wrote in their journals, and a few created a small memory wall downtown.
Bevier also lost a "famous" restaurant, but that was a business, despite the memories. I felt very sad for the loyal employees who had worked in that establishment for years, but the building that housed it was old and part of the original days of Bevier...
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