Tuesday, February 24, 2009

It is cold outside.....

I just got back from spending time at the town park looking at the depot. An energetic retired newspaper man, who wants me to paint a mural on one of the walls inside was with me. The depot is a historic building that was used for the interurban railway system. The trolleys were electric and they ran from Des Moines out to many distant towns picking up people to take them to work, picking up milk to go to market, or people traveling to visit others. The retired gentleman wanted me to see the actual space that he wants the mural to be painted on and also showed me all of the old historic features of the building. The tracks are now gone, but the one side of the depot is still authentic in appearance and the goal is to restore it as much as possible back to its original state. The track bed actually sits under the west lane of the highway 141 heading south towards Des Moines and west to Perry and on farther. You can see a five mile section of the authentic rail bed south of Grange with wooden culverts and the works.
As a point of interest, they want a large mural on the one wall depicting the loading dock and the trolley, waiting to be loaded, boarded and ready to be on it's way. They are going to put a sliding barn-like door and a rail system to hold it up and allow the door to be opened and closed. They can cover the mural when they feel it needs to be protected, and slide it open for history buffs to see what it actually looks like to see the trolley from inside in the waiting room as they did years ago.
It has to be approved before we can start the project, and I do mean we. I want Della to be a part of this project as both of us have lived here long enough to leave something that we both have made to the town. I have a sketch I could share but everything is in the developmental stages but the picture above is just like one of the trolleys.
I said it was cold, the guy and I discussed everyhing we could outside the building and then we went in and did the same. I could see our breath inside and I got chilled to the bone. I am so looking forward to spring. Thanks for reading

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