Work will soon begin to restore a section of the brick wall surrounding the General Lew Wallace Study & Museum.
The project will rebuild a 50-foot section of the wall along Elston Street that is leaning significantly. The wall was built in 1909, four years after Wallace’s death.
Crews are scheduled to begin dismantling the wall around the first of March, said Dale Petrie, director of operations for the City of Crawfordsville.
The bricks will be cleaned and used to rebuild the wall after workers repair the section’s foundation and remove trees that undermine the integrity of the wall, the museum announced in a December news release.
Work is slated to be completed by the beginning of June. “It should be finished well before then, you never know,” Petrie said.
The sidewalk along the east side of Elston Avenue, which is currently taped off, will be closed during the project. The Board of Public Works and Safety approved the request on Wednesday.
Funding comes from a grant from the Montgomery County Community Foundation, donations from a group of local citizens and the Lew Wallace Study Preservation Society on behalf of the city.
For more information about the project, contact museum director Larry Paarlberg at 765-362-5769 or lpaarlberg@ben-hur.com.
Donations can be made online by going to www.ben-hur.com/join-support and designating “Wall Restoration” in the comments.
In other business, street commissioner Scott Hesler said crews continue working to remove snow. As of Wednesday morning, the street department had used about 300 tons of salt and roughly 26,000 gallons of salt brine, a mixture of chemicals used to pretreat roads.
About 300 tons of salt remain on hand and more can still be ordered. The department is capable of storing 20,000 gallons of brine, which is refilled following every snow event.
More snow chances are in the forecast for the weekend, according to the National Weather Service, with subzero wind chills at times and temperatures possibly below zero Sunday and Monday mornings.
