Bloomington: Old hall, new life

In 1860, when township government was probably as rough and rowdy as life on the Minnesota frontier, Mrs. R.B. Gibson put her foot down: No more Bloomington township meetings in her house!

She didn't care that her husband was one of the leaders of the fledgling community. She didn't like the noise.

So the meetings moved to a schoolhouse, and then to the Grange Hall. Finally, Bloomington's leaders decided they needed a town hall.

In 1892, they spent $1,400 to build what would become a landmark at the center of town: a simple, sturdy building in modified Gothic style with a skeleton of Douglas fir, topped by a distinctive cupola that aided ventilation and gave the hall some gravitas.

But as Bloomington grew and Town Hall became Old Town Hall, the building's profile faded. Discolored stucco hid the cedar siding and covered the slatted "eyebrows" that topped the windows. The cupola disappeared.

Residents drove by with barely a glance at the little building. It became an afterthought by the railroad tracks.

That changes this Sunday, when the city dedicates a restored Old Town Hall as part of Bloomington's 150th birthday celebration.

Decades of quiet neglect -- the city had debated what to do with the building since vacating it in 1964 -- ended in 2006. The city spent $720,000 on the renovation, and the Bloomington Historical Society kicked in $140,000 from donations and the sale of engraved patio bricks.

Vonda Kelly, president and executive director of the historical society, is thrilled that one of the city's historic structures has been saved. The society will occupy the building rent-free for at least the next five years.

"It's the place where Bloomington people have gathered for 116 years," she said. "They came together to debate policies, to socialize. They got married here, they danced here. There were Halloween parties in the loft.

"It was a gathering place, and we envision that again."

Renovated inside and out

The renovation, which took about 16 months, restored the outside of the building to its 1892 appearance and the inside to the way it looked in the 1930s. Experts scraped away layers of paint and looked at old photos to get the restoration details right.

Stripped of the stucco that sheathed the hall for about 70 years, the building has new cedar lap siding, painted white as it was in the 19th century. Dark red slatted shutters frame the windows, with hardware that mimics the original. Decorative eyebrows top the windows. And the cupola, missing since the 1930s, has returned with ornate gingerbread details.

Project manager Darrell Baker said that though the hall's structure was rock solid, much of the inside had to be replaced. The old maple flooring had been nailed down so many times to stop squeaking that it proved impossible to save and was replaced with new maple. Plaster on the walls was loose so it was replaced with Sheetrock. Much of the birch beadboard that lines the bottom of the walls is new, but it's painted the same chestnut brown as it was in the 1930s. The tops of the walls gently curve to join the soaring 18-foot ceiling in an arc, just as they did before. And both the building and its main bathroom now are accessible to people in wheelchairs.

Old Town Hall sits near the intersection of Old Shakopee Road and Penn Avenue S., a key location in Bloomington history. Old Shakopee was once an Indian trail. The intersection was roughly the halfway point between Shakopee and Fort Snelling. A general store once sat near the hall, as did a stagecoach stop.

Bloomington's city operations were based in the hall until 1964, when the city was exploding with new development. It's hard today to imagine how city offices were squeezed into a building barely 3,000 feet square, including the basement.

Baker remembers visiting the hall as a boy in the 1950s when public service counters stretched across the ground floor. City executives worked out of the narrow loft space, looking out over city operations through a window that's now gone. Rumor has it that because the hall was so cramped, the city clerk kept some files at home.

A home for history

When a new City Hall was built in 1964 (that building is gone now), the historical society moved into Old Town Hall. Society President Kelly is delighted with the renovated space. The loft will be devoted to research space, the basement to storage and the main floor to events and displays. Display cases are being built to stand between the towering windows, and moveable kiosks will make the main floor easy to adapt for different events.

The society's treasures include a quilt made by Agnes Pond, the wife of early settler and missionary Gideon Pond, and a dugout canoe that was found in the 1960s buried in mud along Nine Mile Creek. The canoe is thought to date from the 1600s. Kelly said the society's first displays in the renovated space will focus on Dakota and immigrant life, but later exhibitions may deal with times as recent as the 1950s and 1960s.

City officials are pleased with the renovation, which last year won a stewardship award from the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota. Painting and other finishing touches were still going on last week, but Jim Eiler, assistant maintenance supervisor for the city, said he was amazed at the transformation.

"I never thought it would look this good," he said.

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380