Let's visit.....

[rickers]

Originally Posted by Reziac

How old is that clock? Does it still have its original glass? (I suppose that'd be hard to know for sure, tho) Old glass gets brittle, takes serious care not to break it if you're fixing the frame. Y'all done good, the results are beautiful. Makes a person proud of the town just to look at it.
Some of that brickwork sure has character. Any of the date stamps visible?

There are some dates on the fronts of some of the buildings. I'll go take a few more pics soon and post the decent ones. The glass replacement was a part of the restoration of the clock. The guy who re-did the glass had the work all done and the piece was a bit trapezoidal so he asked me for ideas of how to fit it back together. I put a bar clamp corner to corner and tweaked it just enough to fit. I was very careful and I think I just got lucky that I didn't break the glass while working on it. I spent a total of about one and a half minutes on my share of the work. !
Now I want to know the age of the clock as well as the age of my building. Off to our towns museum I go to do some snooping.

[seven of nine]

Rickers, glad you are interested in keeping a bit of your town history.
I kept hearing we were in for snow here on the hi-line, not a cloud in the sky!
I have always heard Boz town gets the most snow and they are surely living up to their rep. Hope our soon to be Americorp grad is looking at the weather thread, good ole Montana winter weather.

[janab]

As a "newby" to Helena, I must say as for being the capitol and a "city" it is a great town. It has so much history and people are dedicated to showing it off. I hope they keep it up. My daughter has lived here for 6 years and fell in love with the area. For being not city people we do enjoy the town and most people. We get just enough weather to enjoy the seasons and my "Bozezone" keep the heavy snow their way:-)

[Reziac]

Hey, if every citizen put just 1.5 minutes into fixing up or maintaining their town every week -- for a town of 5000 people that's 125 volunteer hours a week!

Come back and tell us what you learn about that clock

Also found the varigated brickwork on the taller building's side wall interesting... wonder why it's like that?

[Montana Griz]

Originally Posted by Reziac

Also found the varigated brickwork on the taller building's side wall interesting... wonder why it's like that?

..........Hey Rez........

Just a thought on that brick pattern (old/new/different color etc etc);

I've seen this in a couple of other towns: Hamilton, MT and Challis, ID.

I was told that when buildings of this era were re-habbed, in some cases they were originally sloping roofs and they added additional brick work to: gain additional height and/or change the roof line to flat.
You can kinda see the "downward sloping angle of the old brick work", which may indicate the angle of the original sloping roof. Who knows.......just my thoughts.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by Montana Griz

I was told that when buildings of this era were re-habbed, in some cases they were originally sloping roofs and they added additional brick work to: gain additional height and/or change the roof line to flat.
You can kinda see the "downward sloping angle of the old brick work", which may indicate the angle of the original sloping roof. Who knows.......just my thoughts.

You could well be right. And bricks were recycled as much as possible, so whatever got knocked out of some other wall down the street likely wound up in this one, hence the random colours. Does give the building character, I think.

I like the facing work around the clock too -- lots of small detail work that we just don't see anymore in the era of steel-and-plastic. Would be interesting to see what those buildings were like inside when they were new, too -- the photos I've seen often show quite fancy innards -- wallpaper, wainscotting, brass fittings and fixtures, carved woodwork, etc. Most of which unfortunately gets ripped out (and trashed/forgotten) when the building gets "modernized".

Same with houses. Old houses have a depth of character that no new construction has had in decades, but it's seldom preserved when an old house gets updated or remodeled.

[Reziac]

[goes off, turns monitor up to FRY, studies photo again] Yep, I think Griz is right -- the matching bricks come up to the level of the little ridge that looks like new facing across the front. Probably was a single-storey building to start with, expanded upward and with the original false-front incorporated into the new 2nd storey. At a guess, the bricks used for the vertical expansion were random leftovers from other building projects around town at the time, hence the variety. It's a side wall, who's gonna see it anyway?

Note the nifty little decoration above the window, and the detailing around the window too.

[Montana Griz]

Originally Posted by seven of nine

I kept hearing we were in for snow here on the hi-line, not a cloud in the sky!

Hi-Line country, huh? Now I know why I didn't get a rise out of you when I mentioned bird huntin' in Prairie County a few posts back. I'll guess you're up there in Phillips or Valley County.

Any way, you mentioned several posts back about doing some bird huntin'.....well since you're such a nice lady, I'm gonna give you my receipe for Sharpies and Huns. (Hope you got some) I just used this last night on the bunch we brought back from that Prairie County hunt a few weeks back.......hmm, hmm good and tasty.

Breast 'em out and slice into pieces about 1/4 to 5/16" thick. Distribute the pieces into some zip lock baggies that contain the following marinade: (I shake it up in a quart jar and leave it set in the frig for several hours before I (shake again) and then soak the pieces in it--in the baggies---with all the air squeezed out.

4 oz (dry) White Wine; 2 to 3 oz Soy Sauce; 2 oz of Italian Dressing; 1 1/2 oz Lemon Juice; 1 to 2 oz Lite Olive Oil; 4 cloves Garlic (all mashed up); some seasoned salt; seaaoned pepper and some mashed up parsley leaves.

Adjust the above amounts to give you enough total marinade to work with the amount of pieces of breast.

I let em soak in the marinade for about 4 to 5 hours in the frig.....then saute em up in some butter in a good hot skillet (but don't scortch the butter).......don't over cook em....and they will cook real quick. A side salad, some garlic bread; some home-fries (and for "the beverage-of-choice---I usually finish off the White Wine)and your hubby "will get you that new shotgun you been thinkin' about"!!!.

I've used this on slices (cut thicker to about 1/2") of Moose, Elk and Mule Deer tenderloin, and it "works-for-me".

[Reziac]

Now I'm not usually a marinade fan, but that sounds good, and very flexible -- hmm, probably good drizzled over baked potatoes or as french fries dip, too!!

(I think you are supposed to drown potatoes in butter, then liberally dose them with Lemon Pepper, which I use a lot more liberally since it's $4/pound at Costco instead of $4/ounce at the grocery

[rickers]

I took pics today, see below. Conrad's Clock is 100 years old, and the town used to be called Pondera, the same name of our county. It is pronounced just like the lake in north Idaho, Lake Pend D' Orelle (pronounced pond-er-ay) The name originated from French trappers naming the Indians of that area for the shell earrings that they wore.
Here is a link to a brief history of our town. Conrad, Montana

The underside of the clock.


Several old building shots.








Our towns centenial parade and the clock being re-instaled after the restoration.






A few sidewalk shots. The manhole cover was cast in St. Paul.
The basement skylight has purple glass.










The building in the center of this next picture is our baby. The face bricks are newer but the building is close to or over 100 years old.