by Dan Miller
For at least fifteen years, when I've driven by the broken yellow brick gate post next to Dunkin' Donuts on National St. I say to myself, "Something has got to be done to repair that before we lose it." For just as long, every time I chat with John Crowe, Elgin's historic masonry expert, he says, "I would give anything to be able to restore the old Watch Factory gate post." Last summer it was hit again by a car knocking more bricks out which got me going with the idea of restoring it. It is next to Dunkin' donuts so I thought they might own it but they rent the property from Butera Properties. I contacted them about repairing it and they were interested but their budget would not allow it as they just did a very expensive roof repair.
Below is the gate post as it looked just a few weeks ago. Many bricks were missing and the whole thing needed tuck pointing.
I found out through the Historical Society that Maurice Dyer also had an interest in preserving the gate post. We set up a strategy meeting to try to figure out how to get it done. In chatting, he mentioned that he thought since the road had been widened and it was so close to the road that it might be in the city's right of way and thus owned by the city. At my request, the city looked into it and found it is indeed in the right of way and owned by the city. When I approached them explaining the significance of the structure and the need for it to be repaired they agreed to spend the money to restore it. A huge thanks goes out to the city for being so willing to help and especially to Colby Basham for facilitating the project.
Below is how it looked originally with a very fancy gate. On the second picture notice there were two gate posts and a gate house. The one on the left is the one that remains today. A huge thanks goes out to Liz Marston and the Historical Society for the pictures.
I got two bids from contractors to have the gate post repaired. John Crowe's bid was half the other and combined with his enthusiasm to do the job made him an easy choice for the work.
The first road block that John encountered was getting the custom bricks made in the correct color and at a 135 degree angle to make the octagon. John found companies that could do it but they require an order of at least a whole skid. John only needed fifty. Amazingly, John cast his own colored bricks even putting in little black specks to match the original. You cannot see where the new bricks were added.
Here is a picture showing the missing bricks and the gaps showing the need for tuckpointing.
Here is the same view with John's new bricks:
