After seeing the booth inside, the visitor who had the best prerequisites for the refurbishment of the booth was “discouraged almost immediately and said, ‘Man, we just can’t do this,’” said Vanderhorst.
Then Rivera came out and said, “I hate to tell you guys, but this has to come down,” said Vanderhorst. “He said, ‘This thing is actively breaking down.'”
The demolition “is imminent,” said Vanderhorst.
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The nineteenth-century two-story log home, which Hamilton officials were hoping to convert into a residence, must be demolished due to termite damage. NICK GRAHAM / STAFF
Vickers Demolition Inc. was hired to demolish it, and the company believes some of the higher quality timbers are salvageable. “So we will try to save as many as possible.” Cover them up in an urban storage room “and find a use for them,” Vanderhorst said.
“So we’ll try to save as much as possible,” he said, but the termite damage appears to be at least halfway up the building.
They start chewing around inside, hollowing out the trunks, and the damage is therefore difficult to see.
“The contractor is working with us to save as many as possible so it doesn’t go entirely,” said Vanderhorst.
News of the demolition disappointed Hamilton historian Brian Lenihan, who wrote a book about many of the buildings hit by the 1913 flood.
“I would hope that they have checked all of their options,” he said. In a Facebook post, he advocated putting it in the town’s Crawford Woods Park or maybe in the Bebb Park in Morgan Twp. To be relocated where there are other rescued log cabins.
Urban Planning Director Liz Hayden, the third city worker to visit the cabin that day, said the building was in a dangerous condition and the problem was not just termites.
“The termites might be the reason it’s collapsing, but it’s collapsing,” she said.
Until last year, the log cabin was in the hands of Butler County Land Bank, which is taking over properties that are no longer in use or have been foreclosed. The land bank, along with others, transferred the property to Hamilton in 2020.
Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds’ website lists the cabin’s construction as 1900. A retired assistant auditor, Michael Tilton, who worked in the auditor’s office for 38 years and whose grandfather and father served as county auditors, said, “It was the practice Back when paper records were first entered into computers, it was entered in 1900, if no construction years have been recorded for the building. “
The nineteenth-century two-story log home, which Hamilton officials were hoping to convert into a residence, must be demolished due to termite damage. NICK GRAHAM / STAFF
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