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Avilla community residents have not determined how they will make repairs to the historic Avilla Community House, which sustained heavy damage Monday night in a fire believed to have been started by arsonists.  CODY TAYLOR, foreground, and Jesse Loyd look Tuesday afternoon at damage to the Avilla Community House. The teenagers, who are students at Bryant High School, live next door to the historic structure.
An official report on the fire itself was unavailable today from the West Pulaski Fire Department, which responded to the fire around 9:30 p.m.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the incident, but Investigator Aaron Washington’s report was not available this morning, nor could he be reached for comment.
Col. Clifton and Myra Lee Pritchett, who live near the structure, said today that they were called about the fire shortly before 10 p.m. Monday.
“Wen we got there, (firefighters) had taken all the furnishings outside and wanted someone to come look at the building,” Myra Lee Pritchett said.
She serves as an officer of the Avilla Extension Homemakers Club, which oversees the building that was rebuilt in 1907 from a fire.The structure, which served as the Avilla Schoolhouse for many years, sits on land owned by the Bryant School District, but the deed to the building reportedly is held by Dick Hoffman and several other community residents.
Myra Pritchett said she was told by investigators Tuesday that the fire started from arsonists, but she did not have information about how the fire was started.
Clifton Pritchett said the blaze damaged the front half of the building.
“The ceilings and the right side of the walls are burned,” he said. “It started in the northeast corner and burned up a whole corner and then started spreading down inside the walls. It caught the ceiling on fire, but the firefighters were able to poke a hole in the ceiling and up through the roof to vent it and get water through there.
“The front half of the building is pretty much burned, and there’s also smoke and water damage in that part. The back half sustained smoke and water damage, but no fire damage,” he said.
“They had to break windows during the fighting of the the fire and most of the pictures and things on the north walls burned. I think they saved a couple of these, but a lot of them burned.”
The pictures he referred to were of residents posed outside the building through its 100-plus years’ existence.
“One that was saved was an oil painting that Gracie Adams had painted of the building, but we know that a number of framed photographs were destroyed,” he said.
“When the fire went up the northeast corner, it spread up over the eaves and burned a lot of rafters,” he said. “Those will have to be replaced. The firemen got there soon enough to douse the fire in that right corner.”
Pritchett said he was “surprised that a 100-year-old frame building didn’t go up in flames all at once, but it didn’t.”
The oak flooring in the front entrance of the building was damaged “but not burned all the way through,” he said. “A lot of ceiling debris dropped on it, but farther back it appeared to be OK. The back end of the building was not burned at all.”
Clifton Pritchett pointed out that the Avilla EH Club has “slowly dwindled to six or eight people and they no longer meet at the community house. It’s open only for special events now. The EH ladies are the ones who got a grant last year from First Electric to help get the building into shape.”
The structure served as a polling site for most elections, Clifton Pritchett said. “Obviously, it won’t be able to be used for the upcoming May primaries,” he said.
In conjunction with elections, the building frequently served as the setting for political rallies and pie and cake auctions, he noted.
Only minimal insurance was carried on the building, Pritchett said.
“As the activities dwindled there, it was necessary to cut back on the insurance,” he said. “They only had $2,000 coverage. An insurance investigator came out yesterday and he said they will pay that, but that won’t begin to cover the repairs.
“They had to cut back on the insurance when they could no longer have events there that generated a steady income,” he explained.
“The club had to pay the costs of gas and electricity. There were no water connections. There are no rest-room facilities there. An outhouse was removed in recent years. When events were held there, they would bring in portable toilets.”
Clifton Pritchett said his wife and Lucy Murray, president of the Avilla EH Club, plan to meet Friday to discuss the next steps.
“First, they are going to have to decide whether to restore it and, if so, they have to get input from the community. If that is positive, then they’re going to discuss ways to raise funds and will have to appeal to the community for assistance.
“If they decide to restore it, the first thing that will have to happen is to get an estimate on the repair costs,” he said.
In the past, when repairs have been made to the building, much of it was done with volunteer labor, he said. “We’ll have to count on volunteer help from electricians and carpenters,” he said.
Mildred Trouboy, an Avilla resident who attended school at the structure, serves as historian for the club and for the building, he said. |
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