Preservation Council digs into county history
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The area and who has access to it is fast becoming a topic of interest as the city’s Public Works crews demolish streets and sidewalks for the Main Street McMinnville downtown revitalization and economic development project.
The process of recovering historic objects there lies specifically with members of the Preservation Council. They have been granted authority by city officials to make records and to recover, identify and preserve items of historic value.
Going into week two of construction, Renstrom and others appointed to the council have already spent considerable amounts of time downtown lending skills from their areas of expertise, including videotaping, photographing, providing history lessons, metal detecting, and digging for, or more importantly, finding, objects.
“For me, when they paved this street, it was like creating a huge time capsule,” Renstrom said of downtown’s treasures just before crews uncovered an old herring-bone style sidewalk thought to be around 100 years old Monday.
The question of what to do with the recovered brick has surfaced in addition to the question of how far the group is allowed to go in pursuing the objects.
Preservation Council members said the idea is to work at the surface of what is uncovered and create a display later, with many council members saying they do not intend to create construction delays.
“We’re not dictating to the construction people. We’re just going to try to get what is there,” council member Everett Brock said, adding many of the old bricks found Monday were in poor shape and crumbled as they were taken up.
Mayor Royce Davenport also said the idea is to create a future display of what is discovered and not hold up construction unless something major is uncovered.
And as far as the sidewalk bricks, local historian and council member Jimmy Haley said leaving the majority of them alone – since the sidewalk likely extends down the rest of the street – will leave a historical blueprint for future generations.
So far, there have been a few Civil War items found that are not worth a lot monetarily, Haley said, adding an old Civil War bullet is worth just a few dollars.
However, members of the council appreciate the relics as historically significant and relevant to the community and discourage outside foraging.
“I don’t expect to find anything really, really valuable, but I hate to see it get gone because somebody thinks it’s worth something and then we never see it again,” Haley said, adding items found downtown are planned to be kept in storage.
Former longtime American History teacher and current Eastside school principal Michael Trevathan, also a member of the council, said he hasn’t been able to visit the site yet, but is looking forward to confirming what has been rumored to exist there.
“It’s just a way of making a greater connection to the past,” he said. “And that’s what I hope would come out of this.”
According to resolution creating the council, the council is allowed to have up to 12 members whose terms shall expire in March, 2005. Other council members include Don Hutchings, Mark Gribble, Bruce Atnip and Rob Jones.