Milton Locker owner unsure about rebuilding

After a fiery blaze destroyed the Milton Locker in April, owner Roman Schooley says he’s unsure if he will choose to rebuild the facility.

The April 12 fire destroyed the building.

“We’re looking into it, but as of right now, with the cost to rebuild, we are not sure yet,” Schooley said.

He said the estimated cost to reconstruct the locker is between $1.5 million to $2 million.

At the time of the fire, Schooley was expanding the 73-year-old structure. He says the cost of lumber is now two to three times higher than it was when the addition was started.

The blaze required five fire departments and an estimated 60 firefighters to extinguish, Milton Fire Chief Rufus Musser told the Southeast Iowa Union in April.

Musser said all of the meat in the locker at the time had to be tossed. There were no animals or people in the building at the time of the fire.

Schooley said the cleanup process was difficult work.

“Once the insurance company gave us access to go in there and clean up all that mess — because at that point it was starting to spoil — we brought a team of volunteers in there, and we were able to clean that frozen meat and that hanging meat up in about a days work,” Schooley said.

The rest of the cleanup of the facility is pending a completed investigation into the cause of the fire, which Schooley says should be finished soon.

“In the meantime, we’ve had to sit idle and wait for the insurance company to spend their time investigating and figure out the reason for the fire,” he said.

Schooley said the fire was most likely started by an electrical wiring issue.

The estimated cost of damage in the fire was around $500,000, he said.

The locker had six full-time employees who have been out of work since the fire. Schooley said some of the employees have found part-time work.

Milton, population 481, in Van Buren County, is without a local meat processing facility with the loss of the locker.

Schooley said he’s heard former Milton Locker customers are using facilities in neighboring towns, including Bloomfield, Moulton, Moravia and Queen City, Missouri.

“We really feel saddened for the town of Milton. They were looking forward to the business. There’s still a need for a local processing facility in that area,” he said. “Hopefully someday they’ll get one back, so they’ll have a business they can use.”