The sad demise of an historic building.
This is the grand and historic Courthouse in the city of Pittsboro, North Carolina. It had the distinction of being just one of three such buildings in the state that were built in the center of town in the middle of a traffic circle.
The town of Carthage, in the county of Moore (where I live), boasts one also. It was constructed of Indiana Limestone in 1922 and still stands proudly in the center, with traffic flowing around all four sides.
But back to Pittsboro. Just last week a fire erupted in the bell tower of the courthouse and smoke billowed in the air. It was seen for miles and the hope was that it could be contained there.
But, sadly, this was not to be. The fire took hold and the entire building was engulfed in a matter of hours.
You can see in the picture that the courthouse was undergoing some extensive exterior repairs. The cause of the fire is now thought to be from a soldering iron used by a worker. It doesn‘t seem possible that so much damage could be caused by that one item but I guess it did… and another piece of our history has gone down in flames.
posted by Ginnie at 12:22 PM
6 Comments:
Oh, no.
I love old buildings, and when they are architecturally interesting it is sad to see them lost--to fire, storm, ravages of time or whatever.
Such a shame. I am all for the restoration of not only historical buildings but any older structures. I say spend the money to fix them up instead of tear them down and build new. Love Di ♥
I am so sorry about that. What a shame. I love old buildings. They are so special.
It broke my heart to see it burning. We don't treat our old buildings with enough respect anyway, and now this beautiful example is gone. Sad.
We need to do all we can to protect heritage buildings which are architecturally interesting. When extensive work is being done on them there must be extra effort to prevent such an accident as this.
Other countries take their heritage very serious. I was just reading how the city of Prague was fined 3 million crowns for irrepairable damage to the famous Charles Bridge when it was undergoing repairs. http://www.radio.cz/en/article/126496
That's a bad end for a fine building.
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