“Old Gal” not ready to come down yet
By Lee Coleman
Years ago, the original Mercer County Star building moved from Krem to Main Street in Hazen. The building eventually became the home of the Hazen Star before the newspaper moved a few blocks down Main Street to its current location.
The years were good to the “Old Gal” but, as time passed, the building began to show the signs of time but remained standing nonetheless.
The City of Hazen has wanted to demolish the building for quite some time but local resident Arliss Maas stepped in and made an agreement to bring the building down after some extensive salvage work was completed.
In the spring, an original press was removed and donated to a museum and the salvage work has continued, but not as quickly as Maas had hoped.
“I’ve been working on it a little bit here and there,” he said on Tuesday. “I’ve been trying to get as much work down as I could. I have been real busy the last two months. There have been a lot of things holding me back.
“The plan now is, by the end of September or mid-October, it will be done. That’s the plan right now.”
