Another downtown building comes down

Employees of the Roanoke’s Streets Department worked last week demolishing the old Edwards building across from the police department.

The city had accepted the one-story brick building on West Point Street from Robert K. Edwards, paying him $10.

Streets Supervisor Donnie Cash said it took his crew about a day and a half to clean up the site after John Knight knocked down the building with a backhoe last Thursday.

Community service workers are going to clean the bricks and stack them up for sale, according to community service supervisor Frank Fetner, but most mortar was knocked off as they fell.

One member of the crew, Jimmy Bozeman, remembers when his father, James Bozeman, had a shop in the building doing mechanic work like oil changes.

He was there about a year. About 1999 Bozeman had to go get him to carry him home. He was so sick he could not drive. He took him to a Birmingham hospital and his father had cancer and never walked again.

Fetner said Avery Cunningham had a TV repair shop there at one time. Other businesses used it for storage over the years, such as Brown Kitchens with Kitchens Home and Auto.

West Point Street was the town’s first street and what is commonly known as Back Street was once the main street, Fetner said. On a 1913 map the small building was used as a warehouse/storage area. He believes it was built about 1910 because it had plumbing. It had a small chimney close to the front that probably burned coal. The bricks were likely made locally since most of the brick downtown was made locally. They were bigger size bricks that the ones made now.

The crew found the roof was inside the walls and it all came down together.

Railroad blocked

The railroad tracks at the old depot have been barricaded at the request of CSX for the safety of people going over the tracks, Cash said.

A storm drain under the tracks is collapsing and it is dangerous, he said, in urging people to take another route.

He did not have an estimated time for CSX to complete the repair work.