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Public sifts through IW remains
IW buildings opened for public to benefit from left behind furniture, office supplies, and memories
MT. PLEASANT — Thursday and Friday buildings on Iowa Wesleyan Campus opened for the public to venture through old dorms and art rooms in hunt of unknown treasures following auctions last month.
“So, everything inside is free, just no tools inside, so, you can’t take anything off the walls or ceiling,” Caleb Miller, a gentleman asking treasure hunters to sign waiver forms, said. “But other than that, feel free to take whatever, no matter how big in this building [Sheaffer-Trieschmann (ST) Residence Hall] and the next building over is also open.”
According to Miller the next building over, Hershey Hall, contained many art rooms for exploring. The ST Residence Hall was a dorm, so it mostly contained furniture, cabinetry, mattresses, beds, and other similar items.
The demeanor from those going in and out of the buildings varied greatly from excited to sad.
“It's great. We've had 350 people here and everything's free,” the man overseeing the project, Doug Moore said. “We’ve done some serious recycling today. I have a lot of happy people.”
“I am pretty happy to get rid of a lot of stuff today,” he said Friday.
Wendell Conner of Conner’s Plumbing and Heating said he found some useful items as he made his way through the maze of unfamiliar buildings.
“I found a few things,” he said. “I’ve got some chairs out by my van, and I found a stapler I can use.”
Conner also found some memorabilia such as a choir robe and coffee mugs with the Iowa Wesleyan College logo before they switched to a university.
“I’ve always wanted to come into this building, but not under this circumstance,” life-long Mt. Pleasant resident Conner said. “What the future with it, you know? I don’t know.”
“It’s kind of sad,” he said. “Surely, they can’t just tear it down, but what are you going to do with it? It’d cost millions of dollars to fix the thing up. It’s too bad they couldn’t have brought another college in.”
A woman could be overheard speaking about how her mother had attended Iowa Wesleyan and she had no idea how bad of a condition she would find the buildings.
Soft whispers of surprise escaped the mouths of those entering various art rooms filled with student work, photos, and other memories of the building’s previous purpose while loud bangs rang out from the stairwells from filing cabinets being drug down from the upper floors.
An eerie feeling resonated from rooms located at the back of Hershey Hall wall numerous rooms were left most demolished.
“The students were going to make workspaces out of these,” Moore said. “They did all the demo, and then they kind of ran out of energy and the roof started to leak. This is from years ago is what I understand.”
Other parts of the building added to the ominous feeling with vulgar graffiti, broken windows, random shoes, and other remnants of the previous life strewn about.
After two days allowing people to come and go through the buildings, Mt. Pleasant Area Chamber of Commerce posted to social media encouraging the public to continue to stay tuned for additional dates and evening hours and look for the signs and arrows on Broadway Street.
“The big old’ sign you see up front is what to look for,” Miller told those at rummaging through the buildings as he pointed at the large sign establishing “free stuff today” outside of ST Residence Hall.
Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com
