Document text
Butte Creek Mill advocates: 'We are rebuilding' Workers from HamCon Builders start taking the burned pieces of the Butte Creek Mill away Thursday morning in Eagle Point. [Mail Tribune / Andy Atkinson] Thursday Jan 18, 2018 at 6:00 PM Jan 18, 2018 at 6:00 PM Buffy Pollock for the Mail Tribune The smell of charred timber hung in the air Thursday morning as crews began salvaging portions of the historic Butte Creek Mill that burned Christmas morning 2015. Though it destroyed most of the mill's contents, the fire was no match for the 1800s-era, hand-hewn timbers and four-inch square nails, nor for the community's enduring affection toward the 150-year-old landmark. A single charred beam, nearly the length of the mill's remains, sat off to one side. Contractor apprentice Ryan VanDuesen, of Hamcon Builders of Eagle Point, carefully pried individual boards from a 12-by-12 quadrant that once served as office space and product storage at the mill. In addition to salvaging usable materials, crews worked to keep debris out of nearby Butte Creek and prepare the site for rebuilding the mill from reclaimed lumber, new materials and a mill donated from nearby Lake County. Likely a competitor more than a century ago, the historic State Line Milling Co. Grist Mill (Keller Mill), circa 1871, was donated by its owners to help revive the Butte Creek Mill. Mayor Bob Russell, former owner and now president of the foundation raising money to rebuild the mill, grinned as he watched work crews remove board after board on Thursday. He estimated disassembling would take about a week. VanDuesen described it as “time consuming, but worth doing it right.” “We are trying to make the point that it’s not a demolition, it’s deconstruction. We’re making it better and building as we go along. We’re trying to save anything we can save to reuse,” he said. VanDuesen said the importance of salvaging the old mill was apparent not only among the workers, but the community as well. “It’s been great. Everybody’s slowing down. They’re waving, honking their horns … everybody’s really happy to see us out here working.” On the fence surrounding the work site, a sign once declaring “We Will Rebuild” had been modified with red electrical tape to now read, “We Are Rebuilding!” To date, the Butte Creek Mill Foundation has amassed some $800,000 in cash and in-kind donations of the $2.5 million needed to rebuild; $100,000 of that was donated this week by Portland area competitor Bob Moore of Bob's Red Mill. Members of the national Timber Framers Guild will converge at the mill Sept. 1 for a “barn raising” of sorts to reconstruct the mill. “We’ll have about 150 people lined up on the street in groups of 10 to 12 ready to go to work,” Russell said, noting that the effort to preserve the history of both Butte Creek and Keller mills would be first and foremost. “One hundred years from now, people will want to know about the big fire of 2015. It is going to be really incredible to see it all brought back. … We’re going to have one hell of a summer and fall.” For more information, visit www.buttecreekmillfoundation.com or call 541-690-5356. — Reach Medford freelance writer Buffy Pollock at [email protected].