Moving a mountain of vintage Chariton bricks

Wednesday was city-wide cleanup day in Chariton, a team effort that by tradition involves Chariton High School students who fan out across town to do good deeds.

Our team for a couple of hours after lunch on the Lucas County Historical Society Museum campus was made up of (from left) Max Aulwes, a senior, and juniors Mitchell Swarthout, Stuart Masters and Blane Wallace.

This is where I point out that Blane is a direct descendant of John and Hannah Ballard, Lucas County's first Euro-American settlers. John broke five acres of prairie, planted corn and built a log shanty in English Township during the spring of 1846 and moved his family up from Appanoose county a few weeks later.

That's historic continuity but doesn't mean that Blane worked harder than anyone else; it's just interesting. They all worked hard --- and it was a dirty task.

Anyhow, the job we had for them involved a mountain of vintage paving brick that had been gradually sinking into the landscape atop the bluff south of the Pioneer Log Cabin for five years.

The bricks came to the museum about 1976 when one of Chariton's streets was reconstructed and were used to create a broad forecourt in front of Otterbein Church and sidewalks that led from the driveway past the church to Puckerbrush School.

Forty years later, the brick walks had become hazardous. Plus we needed to replace the deteriorating handicap accessibility rams that led to the church doors. So during April of 2018 the bricks were removed and piled out of sight on the bluff and concrete walks, apron and ramp installed.

On Wednesday, the team excavated several hundred (very heavy) bricks and arranged them on pallets. We'll transport the pallets elsewhere on campus for use in another project a little later.

This is a job that's needed doing for a couple of years --- and we're very grateful to Max, Mitchell, Stuart and Blane for doing it yesterday.